


Half-Sick of Shadows

by EAWeek



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alien Planet, Alternate Timelines, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Flashbacks, Mystery, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-08
Updated: 2015-05-08
Packaged: 2018-03-29 15:14:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 56,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3900961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EAWeek/pseuds/EAWeek
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The barren planet Gossan holds a powerful secret, one that is somehow connected to River Song’s release from prison.  Can River and the Eleventh Doctor defeat the Papal Mainframe, or will they become its prisoners for all eternity?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Half-Sick of Shadows--Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Cross-posted from fanfiction.net. This story takes place after season six of the new Doctor Who. The story has been rendered non-canonical/ alt-timeline by the events of “Angels Take Manhattan,” “Day of the Doctor” and “Time of the Doctor.”
> 
> For the sake of clarity, I used "Silence" to refer to the entire religious order, and "Silent/Silents" to refer to the alien species.

Title: **Half-Sick of Shadows**

Author: E.A. Week

Email: e.a.week at gmail dot com; also on Live Journal as eaweek.

Summary: The barren planet Gossan holds a powerful secret, one that is somehow connected to River Song’s release from prison.  Can River and the Eleventh Doctor defeat the Papal Mainframe, or will they become its prisoners for all eternity?

Category: _Doctor Who_.  Eleven/ River.

Distribution: Feel free to link to this story, but **please** drop me at least a brief e-mail and let me know you've done this.

Feedback: Comments are always welcome! Loved it? Hated it? Leave a review, shoot me an email or a PM, and let me know why!

Disclaimer: Copyrights to all characters in this story belong to their respective creators, production companies, and studios. I'm just borrowing them, honest!

Credit where credit is due: The story title is shamelessly stolen from the ballad “The Lady of Shalott,” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

Story Rating:  This story is rated M for sex, language, and mild gore/ violence.

Spoilers/ Continuity: This story takes place after season six of the new _Doctor Who_.  The story has been rendered non-canonical/ alt-timeline by the events of “Angels Take Manhattan,” “Day of the Doctor” and “Time of the Doctor.”

 

_Prologue_

_Brett gasped, quivering with need, as Stevenson stroked his throbbing, prodigious erection.  After several more moments, he pushed the other man onto his knees with an impatient grunt.  Mounting his partner’s taut, muscular ass—_

River Song’s loud laugh pealed out, echoing off the cinderblock walls of the prison library.

From her desk, Valeria glanced up.  “Porn?”

“Very badly-written gay porn,” River chuckled, tossing the book onto a nearby cart.  “Are the men here really that desperate?”

“Beggars can’t be choosers,” said Valeria.

“Do prisoners come in here and request erotica?” asked River.

Valeria nodded her chin toward the guard who sat slumped in a chair near the door.  His chin lolled on his chest, and loud, rhythmic snores emanated from beneath his black face visor.

“There’s the audience for porn, right there.  Poor dears; they’re usually bored to death.”

River rose up to her feet, stretching.  “And that’s this lot, done.”  She pushed the cart around the library, humming to herself as she unloaded books.  She didn’t rush her work; she wanted this project to last the duration of her sentence.  The library was a mess, a hodgepodge of books and random periodicals—some donated, some bequeathed, some confiscated by the prison authorities.  When Valeria had inherited the librarian’s position, the place had been a disaster, and she’d been delighted to take up River on her offer of assistance.

“Not too many prisoners with the faintest notion of how to catalogue a library,” Valeria had said.

“I would imagine not,” River had responded.

She’d nearly finished when the prison alarm sounded: three short, harsh tones.  In his corner, the sleeping guard awoke and leaped to his feet.

“It’s just the lunch bell,” River said.  The man adjusted his helmet, looking sheepish even under all that armor.  He was new—almost all Stormcage guards were new.  The turnover rate was dizzying; most employees requested a transfer as soon as they arrived, driven to distraction by the incessant rain, the perpetual gloom.

“I’ll finish re-shelving after lunch," River told Valeria, but in the prisoners’ canteen, another guard approached her.

“Dr. Song, you have a visitor.”

River only ever had two visitors, only one of whom arrived through official channels.  “I’ll need to go back to my cell, then,” she said.

In the visitor’s room, Professor Candy stood, gazing through the narrow horizontal window at the churning sea and sky outside.  He was almost unchanged since River’s first meeting with him: the same tanned, handsome face, the same shock of white hair.

“Dr. Song,” he said, rolling every syllable perfectly across his tongue.

“Professor Candy.”  River crossed the room to embrace her mentor.

He offered her a small rectangular container.  “Lady Candy sends her regards.”

Through the clear plastic, River eyed an assortment of homemade pastries.  “Tell her I said thank you.”

They took seats facing each other across a small, battered metal table.  In the corridor outside the cell, a guard sneezed.  Because of River’s generally good behavior—apart from her periodic breakouts, she’d rarely caused difficulties—she’d earned the privilege of not having a guard present in the room when Professor Candy came to visit.

Visits to prisoners in Stormcage were limited to thirty minutes, so River got right down to business, handing Professor Candy a thick, leatherbound volume, a bloated, scholarly tome by one of the leading thinkers in fifty-first century archeology, along with several pages of River’s handwritten notes.

“Dull as dust, slow in the middle, definitely padded out,” she said.  “Oh, and chapter 74 is complete rubbish—if he ever actually set foot on Ceruss, I’ll eat a Dalek with mustard sauce.”

“My thoughts exactly.”  Professor Candy’s eyes gleamed, no doubt at the prospect of discrediting his rival, or at least bringing the bastard down a peg or two.  “Thank you for the corroboration.”

“My pleasure,” said River.  “Where are we submitting the review?”

“ _Annals of Intergalactic Archeology_ ,” Professor Candy said.  “It’s peer-reviewed, a nice feather in your cap.”

“Incredible the progress you can make toward tenure from a prison cell.”  River turned to a pile of manuscripts, all covered with her handwriting, and handed them to Professor Candy one by one, saying, “Good, good, good, excellent, good.”  With the sixth manuscript, she said, “This one’s a bit middling—he’ll teach, but I’d keep him out of the field for now.”

“Hmm, very much so,” Professor Candy said.  “He was a minor disaster on his last field assignment—a damned clumsy oaf; stepped on a rare fossil and crushed the thing to powder.”

River clucked in sympathy.  She handed over the last of the dissertation manuscripts.  “Now this one is seriously dodgy—let’s just say she had a free hand with her data analysis.”

“I knew it,” Professor Candy said.  “You’re absolutely sure?”

River pointed to her head.  “I went through the calculations five times, always with the same result.”

Professor Candy wouldn’t doubt her on this.  He well remembered the way River would perform the most complicated statistical analyses in her mind.  Other students had grappled with tables and charts, entering numbers into computers, struggling to make sense of complex reams of data.  River’s Time Lord intelligence allowed her to run all the computations in her mind without touching a pen or a computer.  The other students in her cohort had resented her for that.

“Point taken,” Professor Candy chuckled.  He slid over a new stack of dissertation manuscripts.

“I can see how I’ll be spending the long, dark nights,” River joked, thumbing through the pages.  Ghastly dull, most of them.  She asked, “Any exciting news?”

“Very exciting news.”  Professor Candy drew out his small pocket computer.  “You may have heard that the government of the Third Rutillian System recently passed a measure opening the planet Gossan to development and exploration.”

“Gossan’s been off-limits for millennia,” River said.  “I’ve always wondered why.  There’s nothing to the place—just rock, water, and some very basic life forms—isn’t that right?”

“Caverns,” Professor Candy said, bringing up a three-dimensional hologram.  “Underground caverns—we think there may have been a civilization there once, but any ruins are underground or underwater because of geological activity.  We’re applying for permits now; we should have permission in a few months.  We’ll be the first, River—the first scholars to discover the planet’s true history.  In about a year, perhaps eighteen months, we’ll begin the expedition.”

“Sounds like fun,” River said.

“I want you to lead the field team,” Professor Candy said.

“I’m a bit indisposed, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“You’ve been in Stormcage for nearly twenty years now,” her professor responded.

“Has it been that long?” asked River.  She hadn’t exactly been experiencing her sentence in strict linear time.

“Yes, it has.  And at twenty years, a life sentence is eligible for review and possible appeal.”

River froze, stunned.  In that quiet moment, they both heard the unmistakable sound of the guard outside snoring—the droning rhythm of rain and thunder had a somnolent effect.

Keeping her voice down, River said, “I can’t leave here yet, Professor.”

“Why not?” he hissed.  “That trial was a travesty—there wasn’t a shred of real evidence against you.  Why did you ever enter that guilty plea?”

“Because I _was_ guilty,” River smiled.

“Nonsense,” Professor Candy said.  “The man you allegedly killed has been spotted, multiple times—”

“He was a time traveler,” River said, her voice airy.  “People are seeing him when he was younger, before he died.”

“He recently declared his age, within the hearing of many witnesses, as 1453 years old.  His age at the time of his death was 1103.  And don’t argue with me on that one; I’ve read the full transcripts of the trial.”

“So, he lied about his age,” River said.  “He always lied about everything.”

Professor Candy leaned forward.  “Why are you doing this?” he asked.  “I can’t hold your position forever.  The Board of Regents is pressuring me to help you clear your name or else find another archeologist for the faculty.”

“I’ll take my chances,” River said calmly.  “Luna University doesn’t have the market cornered on archeology.  Besides, I can always freelance.”

“I’ve retained my own counsel, nevertheless,” Professor Candy said.  “We’re going to review your case, River.  I can’t stand the thought of you rotting in this hellhole.”

River whispered, “You have no idea what you’re getting into, Professor!  Those people won’t bother torturing you for information—they’ll just rip open your brain and extract what they want straight from your cerebral cortex.”

Echoing her earlier words, he said, “I’ll take my chances.”

“I really wish you wouldn’t.”

“Dr. Song,” he said.  “I’m not getting younger.  You know I’ve intended, from the first you enrolled, for you to be my successor.  There’s only so far I can mentor you in a prison cell.”

“You’ll be less able to mentor me from the grave.”  His expression was still obstinate, and River said, “I can see there’s no changing your mind.”

“None.”

“They’ll target your family,” River warned.  “Your friends, people you care about.  It’s a specialty of theirs.  Trust me—I know.”

“Then why are you letting them win?”

“I’m not,” River said.

Comprehension dawned in Professor Candy’s eyes.  “You’re protecting someone,” he said, his voice scarcely audible.

River gave a brief nod, mouthing, “Yes.”

Professor Candy sat back, frustrated and disappointed.

“When I leave here, it’ll be on my own terms,” River assured him.  “When the time is right.”

He sighed.  “I only hope it’s not too late for your career.”

“I have more important things to worry about,” River said.  She never fretted about careers, money, even food or shelter.  She was strong, clever, skilled, a survivor to her core.  Somehow, she’d get by.

A harsh buzzer announced the end of the session.  River stood, smiling, and gathered up her armload of new reading material.  “Thank you, Professor,” she said.

The guard opened the door to the visiting room.  “Time’s up,” he said.

“Until next time, Dr. Song,” Professor Candy said, and a guard escorted him to the visitors’ teleport area.

(ii)

After dinner that evening, River went straight back to her cell.  This wasn’t her night to shower—she’d do that after her gym workout the next day.  All afternoon in the library, her thoughts had been racing, creating and rejecting strategies.  She worried about Professor Candy, worried that he’d pursue legal action despite her warnings.  _Damn his academic ego_ , River thought.  He honestly didn’t believe anything would happen to him.  River couldn’t tell him the truth: that as long as she was in prison, the Silence would assume the Doctor was dead, that they’d succeeded in killing him.  That was a secret Professor Candy, with his love of gossip, would never keep to himself.

Her block was quiet, the other cells empty at the moment.  Prisoners came and went through Stormcage with depressing frequency: if they failed to earn a pardon, they usually went mad in a matter of weeks and were transferred to the psychiatric unit.  The women’s area of the prison was smaller than the men’s, and for most of River’s sentence, she’d been more or less in solitary confinement.  She preferred it that way; she hated the yammering and moaning of other women.

She felt a quiet vibration from down the corridor, and she waited, twitching, while the female guard unlocked the cell door.

“Nighty-night,” River smiled as the steel gate clanged shut, the electronic bolt snapping into place.  The guard grunted a farewell and strode off down the corridor on stocky, muscular legs.

River turned, holding out a hand, following the source of the vibration.  Her fingers connected with something solid: the TARDIS sat in the middle of her cell.  She worked her way around the invisible box and grabbed the rucksack she kept ready at all times, as well as the container of pastries.

With a click and a creak, the door of the TARDIS opened by an inch.  A familiar, much-loved voice called from within.  “Cab for Professor Song.”

River went inside, the rucksack over her shoulder.  “Again with the ‘Professor,’” she teased.  “You really need to take care with those spoilers, sweetie.”

The Doctor circled around the console, and River stopped short, staring at him.  He also pulled up abruptly, gawking.

“Why the prison gear?” he asked.

Simultaneously, River blurted, “You’re _old_!”

He folded his arms, scrutinizing her face.  “You’re still in prison?”

River held out the pastries.  “From Lady Candy.”

The Doctor said, “I need to talk to you when you’re a bit older—sorry.”  He pointed to the door.

“No!” River said.  “That’s not fair!”

“I’ll make it up to you—promise.”  The Doctor took her elbow and steered her out the door, back into her cell.  “You’ll do the same thing to me, one day.”  Without any further conversation, he darted into the ship, closed the door, and a moment later, the box dematerialized.  River didn’t see it happen, but she felt the breeze on her face.

“That damned tease,” she grumped.  She threw down her rucksack and the box of pastries, and she sat on her cot, sulking.  “Nothing like getting a girl’s hopes up, and then letting her down.”

She switched on her lamp with a sigh: might as well get started on those dissertation manuscripts.  River still had her vortex manipulator, which she kept hidden in her rucksack, but she used it sparingly, lest the prison authorities find out about it.  No point trying to chase after the Doctor, who could be anywhere in space-time by now.

River hadn’t finished the first page when a high-pitched whine pricked the insides of her ears.  A wind stirred her sheaf of papers, and a moment later, the ship materialized, still cloaked and invisible.  The door opened, and the Doctor poked his head out.

“Stormcage again!” he sputtered, thumping the TARDIS doorframe.

River held up the plastic box.  “Scone?  They’re still fresh.”

“How long’ve I been gone?”

“Three minutes.”

He vanished, and the ship dematerialized again.  River tossed aside the manuscript.  “I can see it’s going to be one of those nights.”

Thirty seconds later, the ship reappeared.  River stood, smiling at the Doctor’s expression when he opened the door.

“Sweetie, I think she’s bringing you back here for a reason.”

“All right, all right,” he grumbled.  “Get your coat.”

River grabbed her things and bounded into the TARDIS before the Doctor could change his mind.

(iii)

Once they were in the time vortex, River addressed the most obvious thing.

“You’re old,” she said.  A quick assessment of the small changes to the console room confirmed that for the Doctor, a substantial amount of time had passed.  “What age are you now?”

“What age was I when you saw me last?”

“The oldest I’ve ever seen you in this body is 1275, or so you claimed.”

“I’m 1515,” he said, rolling up and down on his feet.  “Today’s my birthday.  I was going to take you to sixteenth century Kyoto to celebrate.  Fifteen-fifteen!  Ha- _ha_!  Yes!  This is as long as I’ve ever lived in one body.  Like an old pair of shoes—comfy and just right.”

River couldn’t stop staring at him.  His hair had grown out, very long now, swept back off his high forehead and behind his ears, falling to his shoulders, the wavy dark mass thick with silver.  His temples were completely turned, all the hair around his ears the color of good-quality sterling.  He wore a neat beard, too, salt-and-pepper on his large chin and jaw.

He still wore dark trousers and boots, suspenders and a bow tie.  His shirt was pale gray, the tie dark blue.  Over all this he wore his green wool overcoat, and River’s heart compressed to see that it looked more worn now, threadbare around the edges.

“What?” he said.  “The beard?”

“This will take some getting used to.”

He bounced around the console.  “You’ll appreciate it when you’re older.”

River put her hands on her hips.  “Oh, so I’m not mature enough for you any more?”

He didn’t answer, looking down at a monitor, frowning, his thoughts already on to something else.

“Why today?” he asked.  “Why’d the TARDIS bring me here three times?  What’s so important about today?  Did something exciting happen in Stormcage?”

River opened the plastic container, circled the console, and popped half a currant scone into the Doctor’s mouth.  “Professor Candy came to visit.  I’ve been in Stormcage twenty years according to him, and he’s retaining legal counsel to have my case reviewed.”

“Twenty years?” the Doctor mumbled around the mouthful of scone.  “It’s really been that long?”

“Yes.  Not from your perspective, obviously, or mine, but his.”

The Doctor swallowed.  “He wants to spring you,” he said.  “Why?”

“He’s organizing a dig on Gossan,” River said.  “The planet’s just been opened for exploration.  He wants me to lead the field expedition.”

“Gossan?” the Doctor grimaced.  “Now, there’s a boring lump of rock for you.”

“Professor Candy doesn’t think so.”

“Archeologists,” the Doctor sniffed, then stopped at River’s expression.  “Present company excepted, naturally.”

River helped herself to a sticky-glazed confection, the dough flavored with cinnamon and studded with candied almonds.  She fed the Doctor the other half of the scone.  As she ate, she watched him fuss with the TARDIS controls.

“What?” she said, not sure if she liked his expression.

“It’s just a little hint you gave me,” he said, running his tongue around the insides of his mouth.  “Or, you will when you’re older.  You’ve never told me what exactly happened when you left prison, but you said I’d know when the time comes.  You said it would start with scones.  Currant scones.”

River gave him another one.  “Well, let’s not make a liar out of me, then.”

“It’s something about Gossan,” the Doctor said, waving the scone in a circle.  “There’s something there, connected to your release from Stormcage.”

“Are you ready for me to leave?” River asked.  “I won’t go until you know you can deal with the Silence.  If I’m released, they’ll know for sure you’re alive.”

The Doctor ate the second scone while he thought this over.  “I can’t fool them forever,” he said, running a hand through his hair.  “Getting kind of obvious I’m not a kid any more.”

“Whatever happens, I’ll be there with you,” River said.  “I won’t let you face them alone.”

He smiled: old, sad, tired.  The lines on his face had deepened over the centuries, but he still appeared too young for all that silver.  His body was strong, healthy, unbent by his great age.  The only place his years really showed was in his eyes.  When River looked into them now, she saw the eons of time, the cunning intelligence, the battle scars too numerous to count.

“Right,” he said, entering coordinates and throwing the lever on the TARDIS console.  “To Gossan, then.”  River held onto the console, excitement curling in the pit of her stomach.

**To be continued…**


	2. Half-Sick of Shadows--Chapter One

_Chapter One_

A bloodcurdling scream woke Marissa from her uneasy sleep.  She bolted upright, grabbing her torch, playing it around the inside of the canvas tent.  Her father was already on his feet, stumbling outside.

“Haviva!” he shouted.

Marissa shot out of the tent behind him, swinging the powerful beam of her torch around the desolate, rocky landscape.  In the distance, she spotted a human figure, a black silhouette against the gray dawn sky.

“Father!  There she is!”  Marissa sprinted ahead of her father, calling out, “Havivia!  Wait!  Come back!”  Her strong legs carried her toward a rocky outcropping.  “Haviva!  Please, don’t do it!”

She reached the foot of the outcropping, a pile of rock as high as a small building.  Marissa knew she’d never climb it fast enough.  Behind her, she could hear Father’s labored breathing as he raced to catch up with her.

Above their heads, Haviva stood, long hair blowing in the wind.  For just one instant, Marissa saw the look on her face—lost, terrified, tormented.  She stared down at Marissa, their eyes meeting for a long, unendurable moment.  Then Haviva opened her arms wide and fell.

(ii)

They burned her body in the same canyon where they’d cremated the others, dousing the broken corpse with fuel and setting it alight.  Then they stood at the top of the gorge, watching the flames consume her flesh before they threw rocks and gravel down, covering the charred skeletal remains as best they could.

“It’s just us, now,” Marissa said.

“I know,” Father replied.

(iii)

They huddled in the cave that night after dinner, both of them staring into the meager fire, saying nothing.  Marissa didn’t know what she feared more: dying the way the others had died, or being the last one left alive in this wasteland.  And if she didn’t, for whatever perverse reason, succumb to the madness that had claimed the others, she would die of hunger when their food ran out.  There was plenty of clean water on Gossan, but nothing edible.  Marissa wondered what was worse: a slow death from agonizing starvation, or a quick death on the rocks.

The next morning, Father went to the wreck of their ship, taking stock of their food supplies and sending another distress signal.  Marissa had long since given up hope that anyone would hear them.  Technically, nobody was even supposed to be on Gossan, and she doubted any ships would pass by close enough to pick up their emergency call.

While Father worked, Marissa nosed about the darkened ship—the areas that were still intact—staring at the things they’d brought along: books, prayer rugs and shawls, chanting beads, talismans of their faith.  Those things looked so sad now, relics of a time and a place irretrievably lost.  Marissa was so homesick, it was like a physical pain.  She wanted to go home—more than anything, she wanted to see her home world again.

Father looked up from the ship’s computer, which he could run sparingly on auxiliary power.  “What’s that?”

“What?” asked Marissa, distracted.  “That noise?  It’s the wind.”

A moment later, they both heard it: an indescribable mechanical grinding noise.  For one electrifying instant, Marissa’s eyes met her father’s, then they both bolted for the exit, racing outside the hulk of the ship.

The last thing either of them expected sat on the boulder-strewn slope: a bright blue box with a flashing light on its top.  Marissa couldn’t imagine a more incongruous object in this barren desert of stone.

“This is how it starts.”  She clutched Father’s hand.  “The madness, the hallucinations, the things nobody else can see.”

Father said, “I see it, too.”

A door in the box opened, and a woman of middle years emerged: small, strong-looking, moving with supreme confidence.  Her hair was fair and very curly; her clothes consisted of a drab gray-green sleeveless tunic, plain gray trousers, and utilitarian black boots.  She shaded her eyes from the sun, looking all about.

A moment later, a man emerged behind the woman.  He was tall, very thin, bearded, his hair dark brown, shot through with startling streaks of silver.  He wore dark trousers and a long olive green coat.

“Do you see them?” Marissa whispered.

“Yes,” Father said, his voice shaking.  “They’re real.”

Marissa sprinted toward the newcomers, waving her hands.  “Here!  We’re over here!”

The man and woman began climbing down the slope.  “Was that your distress signal?” the woman called.  “We picked it up and homed in on it.”

“Yes!” Marissa shouted.  “Yes—our ship crashed.  We’ve been here for almost a year.”  Before she could say anything else, she burst into a torrent of tears.

(iv)

Several minutes passed before Marissa could speak coherently.  The woman held her tightly, rubbing her back.  “There, there, it’s all right,” she said.

Father told the strangers what had happened.

“I’m called Tremaine, and this is my daughter, Marissa.  We were traveling from Euclase to Symestine, and our ship’s engines began to fail.  We had to make an emergency landing here on Gossan.  We’ve been sending distress signals every day for nearly a year.”

The man said, “Why did the engines fail?”

Tremaine spread his hands wide.  “We never could determine what went wrong.  Everything was in excellent working order when we left the spaceport.  I’ve been running the ship’s computer on auxiliary power; I’ve run every diagnostics program we have, and so far I’ve turned up absolutely nothing.  It was like the engines just died.”

“You crashed?” the woman asked, peering over at the old starliner.

“Let’s call it a very rough landing,” Tremaine said dryly.  “The hull was damaged—even if we had enough power, we’d never get her safely into orbit.”

“How many of you are there?” the man asked.  “Just the two of you?”

Tremaine said, “There were sixty of us, initially.  Marissa and I are the only ones left.”

“Did the rest die when the ship landed?” the woman asked, her forehead wrinkling.

“No,” said Tremaine.  “No, they—well, it’s a long story.  You haven’t even told us your names, or what that blue box is.”

“I’m called the Doctor, and this is Dr. River Song,” the man said.  “That blue box is our ship.”

“Does it have room for two more passengers?” asked Marissa.

“Loads of room!” the Doctor laughed.  Sobering, he asked, “What happened to everyone else?”

“Come with me,” said Tremaine, his voice heavy with weariness.  “Over here.  It’s a story best told sitting down.”

(v)

“Over here” turned out to be a cave about a half-mile from the ship, where Tremaine and his people had taken shelter, setting up neat canvas sleeping tents in a circle around a fire that they’d contrived by burning fuel in a steel canister.  A number of folded tents leaning against the cave walls bore mute testimony to the people who’d died.

“I only wish you’d come soon enough for Haviva; you might have been able to help her,” Tremaine said, beginning the conversation in haphazard mid-thought.  “She was my cousin.  She resisted the madness longer than any of the others, but in the end, even she succumbed.  We cremated her just this morning.  Please have a seat.”  Tremaine gestured to some overturned gray packing cartons, standard issue on most starliners: they were durable and extremely lightweight.  River and the Doctor took seats.  Marissa served food while Tremaine poured out beakers of water.

“At least the water here is clean and plentiful,” he said wryly.  “We’d never have survived this long without it.”

River observed the man and the girl.  They were dusty, grubby, exhausted-looking—and thin.  No doubt they were rationing their food stores to last as long as possible.  It must have been difficult for Tremaine but torment for Marissa, who looked as though she were still growing.  She was a strapping lass, easily over six feet tall, broad through the shoulders, her hands very long, her feet rather large.  She’d gotten her looks from her father, a tower of a man, just a few inches shy of seven feet.  White hair and a white beard framed a large, craggy face, his eyes set deep in his face, quiet and watchful.

River put Marissa’s age at about sixteen, her babyish face incongruous on that powerful body.  Her hair was long, dark blonde, falling in two loose braids over her shoulders.  Both father and daughter wore a tunic and trousers of fabric that looked hand-woven, the trousers dark brown, the tunics dark red.  When Tremaine passed River her beaker of water, River observed a striking geometric tattoo on his right wrist.  Marissa bore a similar mark on her left.

River took a sip of water.  “Are you Moolotites?” she asked.  Father and daughter jolted, and River said quickly, “It’s all right.  We’re not from the government.  I’m an archeologist—I’ve studied religions.”

Tremaine relaxed, though his eyes held a wary expression, one that River suspected had come from decades of persecution.  “Not everyone is so accepting,” he said.

“Is that why you were traveling to Symestine?” asked the Doctor.  He glanced down at his wristwatch, tapping the face.  “Oooh,” he said sympathetically.  “This is a bad time for Moolotites on Euclase.”

“We lived in our own community on Euclase,” Marissa nodded.  “It wasn’t always easy, but people would at least leave us alone.  Then the new government came to power, and they began restricting our activities more and more, and they took away all our protections, and people became more and more hostile.  They wouldn’t leave us alone.  That’s all we’ve ever wanted—to be left alone.”  She hiccuped back a sob.  “They hate us—why do they hate us so much?”

River and the Doctor glanced at each other.  “There’s never a rational reason for hatred,” River said.  “Especially religious hatred.”

“We had no choice,” said Tremaine.  “People were dying—our neighborhood had become a prison whose walls were slowly closing in on us.  Perhaps three dozen of us escaped, and we joined up with Moolotites from other cities.  We pooled our resources, bought the ship, and hired a crew who promised to bring us to Symestine—there’s a Moolotite community on Symestine, and religious refugees are welcome.”

The Doctor said, “Was there any sign your ship had been sabotaged?”

River added, “How trustworthy was your crew?”

Tremaine said, “We had full confidence in our crew.  They weren’t Moolotites, but it’s difficult to believe they’d have scuttled the ship deliberately without making some provision for their own escape.”

“They were as upset and frightened as the rest of us,” said Marissa.  “Maybe even more so, because they couldn’t tell what had happened to the ship’s engines.  Maybe that’s why they were the first—”

“What?” asked the Doctor.

“The crew were the first to succumb, starting with our navigator,” Tremaine said.  “About two weeks after we landed.  At first we thought she was under duress from the fear and panic.  She was having nightmares—horrible nightmares.  And then she began having hallucinations.  She saw things nobody else could see.  She wasn’t able to tell her visions from reality.  At last she ended her own life to be free of the torment.”

“Seeing things?” asked River.  “Did she say what?”

Marissa offered, “Things from her past.  She thought she was responsible for the engine failure.  It was like she was haunted by guilt.  She’d just scream and scream because she thought we’d all died and she was surrounded by corpses.  One morning we woke up to find she’d thrown herself from a high ridge during the night.”

“Early morning,” said Tremaine heavily.  “They all ended their lives just before dawn.  Most of them jumped—there’s certainly no shortage of high places around here.  One used the ship’s fuel to self-immolate.”

“And it spread from the crew to the passengers?” the Doctor asked.  “Everyone?”

“One by one,” said Marissa, her eyes brimming.  “As if something was singling them out, finding weaknesses, isolating their minds, and then destroying them from within.”

River jolted a bit, exchanging a swift glance with the Doctor.  She asked, “Were everyone’s visions the same, or did they see different things?”

“Why is that important?” asked Tremaine.

The Doctor said, “It’s not unusual for a—a telepathic entity to prey on individual fears and doubts.  Long-buried phobias and insecurities are magnified and turned against the person, until they’re driven mad.”

Marissa shuddered.  “Everyone’s nightmares and visions were different.”

“Have you explored much?” asked the Doctor.  “Did you find anything?  Disturb anything?”

Tremaine shook his head.  “Apart from the ship’s landing, no.  We’ve collected water, made our camp in this cave.  There’s nothing to disturb.”

River pointed to the yawning darkness at the rear of the cave.  “What’s in there?”

“Nothing,” said Marissa.  “We only explored it a bit.  It goes back a fair way, but we didn’t want to waste our batteries.”

Tremaine said, “And Moolotites don’t believe in exploiting resources—we’ve always lived as lightly as possible.”

“Still,” said the Doctor, “you might have disturbed something, just by being here.”

“‘Something?’” echoed Tremaine.  “What kind of something?”

River said, “Some planets, even stars, are sentient.  They have a consciousness, an awareness.  And they don’t take kindly to strangers, to anyone they perceive as a threat.”

Distressed, Marissa said, “We’ve done nothing!”

The Doctor said, “A planetary entity wouldn’t know that.  It exists on a vaster scale than you can even imagine.  It wouldn’t think the way you do; it might not have language; it wouldn’t reason the same way as you.”

“It was an accident we even landed here,” Marissa said.  “We weren’t—”

Tremaine broke in, “Given the circumstances, I’d say the wisest course of action is to leave the planet immediately.”  He asked the Doctor, “Can you take us to Symestine in that blue box?”

“I can take you anywhere,” the Doctor said.  “But Dr. Song and I are here for personal reasons, and we’d like to have a look around before we leave.”

“Aren’t you afraid of disturbing… it?” asked Marissa.

“We’ve only just arrived,” the Doctor said.  “You said it took a fortnight before anyone was affected.  That buys us some time.”

“We’ve been here almost a year,” Tremaine said.  “We might not have as long.  Marissa and I are the only two left.  Sooner or later, one of us will succumb.”

River asked, “Doctor, why don’t they wait in the TARDIS?  The ship will shield them, and they can wash up and rest.”

The Doctor asked Tremaine and Marissa, “What do you think?”

Marissa said doubtfully, “In that blue box?”

The Doctor hopped up to his feet, grinning, “Get your things,” he said.

(vi)

They were speechless at first, then the questions began.

“No, no, not really enough time right now,” the Doctor protested, holding up his hands.  “This is when it’d be good to have someone like Rory on board—he was always so good at explaining everything.  Dr. Song and I need to look at the back of that cave.  Tremaine and Marissa, why don’t you two have a lovely wash and kip for a bit?  River, show them the way, would you?”

River led their two flummoxed guests to the bathrooms and showed them a spare bedroom where they could rest.

“How long will you be gone?” asked Marissa.

“There’s no telling,” River said.  “It depends on what we find.  But you’ll be safe in the TARDIS.  You can shower or bathe, and sleep for a while.  There’s clean clothes in the wardrobe, if you want to change.  You both must be exhausted.”

“I’ll feel better when we’re on Symestine,” said Tremaine.

“You will soon,” River promised.  “The only thing we ask is that you not touch anything in the console room.”

At last, Tremaine relented.  “All right,” he said.  “But Dr. Song—our lives are in your hands.”

“We’ll be back,” River said.  “You have my word on that.  If there’s anyone who can learn what happened to your crew, it’s the Doctor.”

(vii)

“What’s all this?” asked River when she got to the console room.

“Caverns,” the Doctor said.  “You told me Professor Candy was planning to explore caverns.”  He looked up, grinning.  “So, let’s beat him to the mark.”

River sorted through the equipment with a professional eye.  “Good,” she nodded.  “We’re going to need to wear something lighter and more practical.”

“Check the wardrobe,” the Doctor said.  “There should be gear from when I took Rose and Jack down the Orinoco.”

Within thirty minutes, they were suited up and ready, clad in lightweight, khaki shirts and trousers.  The fabric was durable and tough, but so light that they could swim in it without extra drag; it would also dry quickly.  On their feet they wore thin, flexible, rubber-soled shoes that would protect their feet but still enable climbing.  They carried lengths of climbing rope, ascenders, carabiners, quickdraws, and a variety of belaying devices—everything they’d need for a descent through underground caverns.  About their foreheads, they wore powerful miners’ lamps, and they carried additional torches on their climbing harnesses.  Everything would be carried in waterproof packs.  The Doctor had also located face masks and small oxygen canisters.

“How much air will those give us?” asked River as they carried everything down the hill toward the cave.

“About three hours’ worth,” the Doctor said.

Inside the cave, they divided up the gear and strapped the packs onto their backs.

“Are we good?” asked River, switching on her miner’s lamp.

The Doctor switched on his own lamp.  “Geronimo,” he said, bounding down the length of the cave.  “Feel that draft of air—can you believe Tremaine’s team was on the planet all this time and never had a butcher’s?”

“Can you blame them?” River asked.  She hurried alongside the Doctor, keeping pace with his long strides.  “Is the planet sentient?  I can’t feel anything unusual.”

“It’s alive,” the Doctor confirmed.

“Can you communicate with it?” asked River.

“I’d rather not take that chance just yet,” the Doctor answered.  He tapped his forehead.  “Shielding things for now, just in case.”

River realized she’d done the same thing without even realizing it—probably as soon as they’d left the TARDIS, an unconscious Time Lord reflex.

“That’s how Tremaine’s people were affected,” she said.  “Their minds are so open from all their meditating, they have no way to defend themselves from psychic attack.”

They’d walked far enough now so that they’d lost sight of the cave’s mouth behind them.  The ground sloped steadily downward, and the air grew cool, damp.  River cast her light about the cave walls: black, unremarkable.  Here and there, water ran down the stone in tiny rivulets.

“Gossan’s something of an enigma,” she said, drawing on her course readings from memory.  “It has a good atmosphere and gravity, plenty of water and sunlight, and yet no life forms have evolved beyond lichens and a few microscopic aquatic species.  All the conditions are here for life—on any other world, by this point in its history, the planet would be teeming with plants, animals, insects—but there’s nothing here at all.  It’s almost sterile.”

“It does make you wonder,” the Doctor said, pausing for a moment to examine some loose rubble.  “Extrusive igneous rock,” he said.  “Same as outside.  No variety.”

River said, “It’s like something’s inhibiting normal evolution, normal development.”

The Doctor glanced at her and put a finger to his lips.  Comprehending his wish for caution, River nodded.

She was glad of their lights when the cavern came to an abrupt end at a stone wall.  The way forward lay at their feet: a gash in the floor.  River played her light down the well, but it only illuminated a few meters.  Beyond that lay pitch blackness.

She uncoiled her longest length of kernmantle rope.  “Only one way from here.”

They didn’t rush their preparation, using a spring-loaded camming device to secure their ropes to a pair of boulders nearby, rocks large enough to support their combined weight.  River tugged on climbing gloves, then checked her harness and the Doctor’s.

“I’ll go first,” she offered when they were ready.

“I should,” the Doctor began, but River cut him off.

“Sweetie, I went to school for this, and besides, I’ve been training since I was a child.”

“Seriously?” the Doctor asked.  “The Sil—they taught you how to rappel?”

“Rappelling, rock climbing, land missions, air missions, aquatic missions—” River touched his nose.  “There was no telling where you’d show up or what skills I’d need to bring you down.”  After a quick kiss for good luck, she said, “I’m versatile.  Besides,” she winked, “ladies first.”  She ran the rope through her hands, planted her feet against the rock wall, and began to lower herself into the abyss.

(viii)

Their chief worry—that they wouldn’t have enough rope to complete the abseil—proved unfounded.  There was still plenty left when River’s feet touched the bottom.  “I’m down,” she called.  A few moments later, the Doctor dropped beside her.

They unhooked their torches from their belts and took a look around.  This cavern was much the same as the one above, the ceiling about a meter over the Doctor’s head, the rock more of that unremarkable black stuff.

“These are naturally occurring caves,” River said, “probably formed during tectonic shifting or ancient volcanic activity.  They weren’t formed by water—the walls are too rough—and they weren’t dug out mechanically, either.  The walls are too irregular.”

“Were you expecting something different?” asked the Doctor.

“Professor Candy was hoping we’d find remains of an ancient civilization.”

“Sorry to disappoint him,” the Doctor said.  “There wasn’t one.”

“There wasn’t one, or just not one that _you_ found?” River taunted.

He shrugged.  “Is there a difference?”

River made a face.  “Which way should we go?” she asked.  From where they stood, they could follow one of three tunnels.

The Doctor wet his right index finger and held it up, turning around in a 360-degree circle.  He pointed.  “That way.”

River withdrew a stick of waterproof chalk from a pouch on her belt and marked the tunnel entrance.  As they progressed along the passageway, she made a couple of additional marks, arrows pointing back the way they’d come.

“So, you studied Moolotites,” the Doctor said, breaking the pervasive quiet.

“I studied every religion,” River said.  “I used to inhale books whole, the more obscure, the better.  Moolotities have been around for eons, though they’re long past their greatest age.  It’s an old faith, and as other belief systems evolved, Moolotism didn’t change, and its adherents were regarded with some suspicion.”

“What do they believe… or not believe?” he asked, as if testing her knowledge.

“That their gods have no names, no physical entities, no dwelling place,” River said.  “Worship is done outdoors—they consider it sacrilege to build temples.  Each adult has a prayer rug, a shawl, and a string of beads—they’re said to carry their own temples with them, wherever they go.”

“And this put them at odds with…?”

“Galenians, mainly,” River said.  “Devotees of the father-god Galen and his consort Galena.  They’re actually a Moolotite off-shoot, and Euclase was their principal planet.  They humanized their gods, gave them names, attributes, personalities, feast days, and made up complicated stories about them.  They built temples—extravagant temples, some of them.”

“Becoming very rich in the process,” the Doctor said.

“Naturally,” River agreed.  “And this was a more attractive religion—less time praying out in the elements on mats in uncomfortable positions; less time meditating.  The Moolotites see divinity everywhere, so they rarely interfere with their environments.  The Galenians were less scrupulous about exploiting resources—they were quite clever, actually, about developing mythology to justify pretty much anything they wanted to do.”

“Hmm,” the Doctor said, scanning the walls with his sonic screwdriver and looking at the readings.

“The Galenian population grew and grew, until the Moolotites were a minority on their own planet,” River said.  A thought occurred to her.  “Do you think there’s a connection with what’s happened here?  Were these Moolotites…” she paused “…afflicted because of their faith?”

“Hmm?  No,” the Doctor said.  “Anyone who couldn’t shield their mind would be affected.  But notice how the crew—the only non-Moolotites—were first.”

“The Moolotites’ faith was protecting them?” asked River.

“Grounding them,” the Doctor said.  “Giving them something to believe in.  But as time passed and the hope of rescue faded, even the faithful began to doubt.  And that weakened them.”

“Tremaine and Marissa are the last because they also have faith in each other,” River realized.

“Exactly.”

River shone her light down the tunnel, hoping to see something, anything, to break the monotony of the dark cavern walls.  “Sadistic,” she said under her breath.

“Yes,” the Doctor agreed.  “Taking them one at a time, eating away at their perceptions of reality, not killing them, but making them end their own lives, sowing yet more fear and doubt among the survivors.  Yes.  Sadistic.”  The Doctor looked down the tunnel.  “Good word.”

River fought back a shiver.  Peering ahead, she said, “Doctor, can you see light?”

“Torches off,” the Doctor said.  They both switched off their torches.  “Now these.”  The Doctor switched off his miner’s lamp, and River did likewise.  She braced herself for the unnerving total blackness.  Instead, they both saw a faint luminescence in the distance.

“Ah-ha!” the Doctor said, sounding satisfied.  They switched their miners’ lamps back on.  “Knew it!”

They picked up their pace, River keeping the beam of her torch playing across the ground before them, lest they encounter another crevasse.  But the floor of the cavern—smooth, packed dirt—remained unchanged.  The glowing light ahead continued to grow until it illuminated the tunnel enough for River and the Doctor to switch off their miners’ lamps and for River to switch off her torch.  They hurried the last few meters to the mouth of the tunnel, stopping short in astonishment.

River said, “Oh, that’s stunning!”

The Doctor said, “Looks like we’re going to get wet.”

(xiv)

The underground cavern was enormous, a veritable lake, stretching out beneath the roof, its surface smooth, unbroken by so much as a ripple, black as obsidian.  Overhead, the roof of the cavern glowed with light, thanks to a thick layer of magnificent phosphorescent crystals.

“At least there’s something down here besides black rock,” River said.

The Doctor scanned the lake.  “There,” he said, “can you see it, there?”

River withdrew a small pair of compact field glasses and took a closer look.  “It’s another tunnel,” she said.  “I don’t think the water goes into it, though—there’s a bit of a shoreline.  We should be able to swim across to it pretty easily.”

“If we can get down to the water,” the Doctor said.

River was uncoiling another length of rope.  “That’s the easy bit,” she said.  “Getting across the lake without developing hypothermia will be trickier.”  From the pouch on her waist, she withdrew two small squares of something that looked like chewing gum, each wrapped in a piece of waxed paper.  “Eat this.  It’ll adjust your metabolism so your body will retain heat for two hours.”

The Doctor ate the small square, grimacing.  “Tastes like… like strawberry flavored paste.”

“It’s not _haute cuisine_ ; it’s just supposed to keep you alive,” River smiled.  She used her chalk to mark their position in the stone wall.

Their abseil down the cliff face went without incident, and before they knew it, they stood on the stony lakeshore, where the black water lapped noiselessly against the rocks.  River ran a quick test of the water quality.  “It’s safe,” she said.  “I wouldn’t drink too much of it, though.  It’s not as cold as I’d expect—just under 15 degrees Celcius.”  They transferred all their gear into the waterproof packs and inflated air pockets in the sides of the packs.

“Push the bag ahead of you, and if you get tired, turn onto your back and kick,” River instructed.  “We’ll save the oxygen canisters in case we have to do any underwater work.”

She entered the water first, climbing carefully over the rocks, wading up to her waist, and pushing off.  “It shelves deeply,” she called back to the Doctor.  “The temperature’s all right for now.”  The water wasn’t what she’d call warm, but thanks to the metabolic stabilizer, it didn’t feel as icy as it normally would.

They kicked out into deeper water.  After a few moments, River suggested the Doctor turn onto his back so that she could take the lead.  Halfway across the lake, they switched places, River turning to kick on her back and the Doctor pushing his pack ahead of him.  They swam in silence to conserve energy, not rushing to avoid leg cramps.

River enjoyed staring up at the ceiling of glowing crystals, which shimmered in hues of pearly white, delicate pink, sky blue, and palest lavender.  Near her head, she felt the quiet wake created by the Doctor’s kicking.  The water smelled clean, and River ventured a tiny sip, rolling the liquid over her tongue, confirming that the lake was uncontaminated by any pollutants.  The water wasn’t stagnant at all, perhaps fed by underground springs.

When River heard the Doctor’s voice, she lifted her head out of the water.

“We’re almost there,” he said.

River turned onto her belly again, pushing the pack ahead of her and kicking alongside the Doctor.  Before them, the far shore appeared, a long strip of rocks where the roof of the cavern sloped down.  River could see the tunnel entrance easily.  She checked her waterproof watch: they’d been swimming for nearly an hour.

Ten minutes later, they felt the steep lakebed beneath their feet, and when the water became shallow enough for them to find purchase, they clambered with care up the rocks.

“Phew,” laughed River, taking hold of her right ankle to stretch her quadriceps muscles.  “There’s a workout for you.”

While she stretched, the Doctor deflated their packs and withdrew two small bottles containing a mixture of water and electrolytes.  He handed one to River and downed the other himself.  Then they strapped on their climbing harnesses and miner’s lamps.  Their wet clothes would dry as they walked.

“We’ve been gone nearly four hours total, including the swim,” River said.  “I hope we find what we’re looking for soon—we don’t have enough food and water to stay down here forever.”

The Doctor peered down the tunnel.  “The source is nearby,” he said, his voice ominous.  “We’re getting closer to it.”

They proceeded with more caution now.  After a few meters, the phosphorescent light behind them began to dim, and the tunnel closed in around the two time travelers.  They switched on their miner’s lamps first, then the torches.  This tunnel was much the same as the others, but it felt closer, darker, more sinister.  River began to long for daylight, and she tried not to think how long it would be before they’d escape the bowels of this lifeless planet.

Although River didn’t possess a full Time Lord’s senses, she still enjoyed a heightened awareness of psychic influences, the faculty that humans called the sixth sense.  She’d begun to grow cognizant of something around them in the rock walls, something alive, capable of thought and emotion.  Their footsteps, quiet as they were, still sounded too loud to River’s ears.  She glanced at the Doctor, meeting his gaze.  He gave a slight nod, acknowledging that he had perceived the same things, but saying nothing aloud.  River was grateful for her ability to shield her mind, also for her immense faith in the Doctor.  She often felt she could walk unscathed through Hell itself as long as she had the Doctor at her side.

The scent was so subtle that she didn’t at first notice it, until the Doctor stopped short, head craned forward, nostrils flaring.

“Burnt sugar?” River murmured.

“No… more like…”

“…bitter almonds,” they said in unison.

River shrugged out of her backpack, removing the oxygen canister and looping the face mask around her neck.  The Doctor took the same precaution.  They moved forward, sniffing the air.  River kept one hand on her oxygen mask, ready to slip it up at a moment’s notice, staying alert for any signs of dizziness or nausea or light-headedness—the classic symptoms of cyanide poisoning.  As they moved forward, the bitter almond smell grew stronger, but they had no difficulty breathing.

“There,” the Doctor said, pointing to the right.  Further up the tunnel, illuminated by their lights, was the dark outline of an archway.

They slowed, approaching the doorway on silent feet.  River went first, flattening herself against the wall before she took a quick look through the archway, casting the light of her torch all around.

A multitude of faces stared back at her, gray-white, distorted, black eyes large and hollow.  No mouths—just eyes.  Long bodies, black-clad, the middle digit of each hand enlarged and grotesque.

River let out a brief shriek.  _Silents_.  The underground cavern was full of Silents.

**To be continued…**


	3. Half-Sick of Shadows--Chapter Two

_Chapter Two_

“It’s all right!” the Doctor gasped, flashing the light of his torch in a quick arc.  “They’re all dead.”

The bitter almond smell was incredibly strong in here, but mixed with an unmistakable scent of decay.

“It’s coming from _them_ ,” River realized, shuddering.

“Yes,” the Doctor said.  “The gas is in their tissues… they’re giving off a cyanotic by-product as they decompose.”

River looked up at the ceiling.  “They fell,” she said, turning her attention back to the bodies, which lay in an undignified heap.  She could see that one or two Silents had attempted to crawl across the floor—toward what?—but had died in their tracks.  “They were poisoned while they were sleeping—maybe they were hibernating.  Was it a deliberate murder?”

“No,” the Doctor said, casting the beam of his torch from ceiling to floor and back again.  The floor of the cavern was packed dirt, and puddles of water had accumulated here and there.  He leaned over one of the puddles, sniffing.

“Don’t you see?” he said, straightening up.  “The cyanide must’ve been in the water, and it dripped down from the ceiling… worked its way in from elsewhere, maybe an underground stream.”

“But how did the cyanide get into the water?” asked River.  “And why aren’t we affected?”

“Tremaine’s ship,” the Doctor said.  “An old reconditioned category two starliner.  It must’ve been the best the Moolotites could afford.  Category two ships were discontinued because—”

“Because acrylonitrite was used in the ships’ hulls!” River said.  “When the ship crashed, the hull split open.  The acrylonitrite must have burned and released the cyanide that got into the ground water, somehow.”

The Doctor was inspecting the bodies of the Silents.  “They haven’t been dead very long,” he said.  “It’s damp down here; the bodies will decompose quickly.”

“Less quickly than usual, though,” River said.  “It’s cold here, and there aren’t the insects and bacteria that would help break the bodies down.”  She looked again at the ceiling.  “It took a while, but the hydrocyanic acid must’ve started dripping down here, maybe after a heavy rainfall, and gassed them to death.”  She forced herself to scoot down and examine the nearest body.  Using a knife taken from her belt, she cut a small piece of tissue from the alien’s head.  The outer skin was more gray than white, the flesh blue and spongy in texture.  When River studied it under her light, she could see it showed clear signs of necrosis.  “I think they’ve been dead for a while.”  She stood up, grimacing.  “God, I hate Silents.”

“Why were they down here?” the Doctor said.  “Why were they even on Gossan?”

“Does it have something to do with…?” River gestured with her arm, mouthing, “It.”

The Doctor took her meaning.  “It must be,” he said.  “I don’t believe in that much coincidence.”

“There’s nothing on Gossan to bother with,” River said.  “Silents need other intelligent species to do their work for them.”

“Unless they’re guarding something,” the Doctor said.  “Like they used to guard you in the orphanage.”

They stood staring at each other, and River said, “We can remember them!  Without looking at them!”

“Because they’re dead,” the Doctor said.  “They need to be alive to interfere with your memory.  Right now, they’re just so much lifeless flesh.”

“How can you remember the orphanage?” asked River, hands on her hips.  “I can’t even remember that, beyond what you and Amy told me, and tiny bits of memory.”

The Doctor pretended to be very absorbed with his sonic screwdriver, scanning the puddles, the Silents’ bodies, and looking at the readings.

“Doctor, how much do you remember?” River persisted.

“All of it,” he said at length.  “Well, most of it, anyway.”

“How is that even possible?”

The Doctor ran a hand through his silvering hair.  “Age,” he said.  “Time Lords’ telepathic abilities increase with age.  Well, everything increases—all mental faculties.  Including memory.”

“So you remember everything?” River breathed.  “All of it—Utah, Florida, the orphanage?  Every time you’ve seen them—you can remember now?  Without an external hard drive?”

The Doctor looked self-conscious.  “It took some work,” he said.  “Long spells of sitting quietly, and focusing, and being really quite bored—”

“That’s why you’ve been going off on your own,” River said.

“Quiet places,” he said.  “Lots of meditating.  It takes work to strengthen memory, like building up a muscle.”  He wagged the sonic screwdriver at her.  “I was always rubbish at telepathy—flunked it three times at the Academy.”

River asked, “Who else knows?  Have you told Amy and Rory?”

The Doctor shook his head.  “Only you.”

“Will I be able to do that?” asked River, trying not to get her hopes up.

“You won’t live long enough,” he said bluntly.  “You gave up your ability to regenerate when you saved my life in Berlin.”

“A small price to pay,” River said without hesitation.  “Still, it would’ve been useful—to be able to remember the Silents.”

The Doctor looked around the cavern.  “Never though I’d make it to 1500,” he said, half to himself.

“How many times can you regenerate?” asked River.

“Not really sure,” the Doctor said.  “They used to make you stop after twelve.  Thirteen bodies, that was the limit.  Time Lords tended to go a bit mad after that.”  The sonic screwdriver clicked as the Doctor opened and closed the end, the green light glowing.  “But there’s no-one to stop me now.”  He gave a short laugh.  “I can keep going for as long as I like, River.”  He snapped out of his reverie.  “So, where were we?”

“Silents,” River said.  “You can face them now.  We—you have an advantage you didn’t have before.  And they don’t know that.”

“Yes.”  The Doctor turned around.  “So, what were they guarding?” he said.  “Something important, if it had to be hidden underground on the dullest lump of rock in the universe.”

“A weapon?” asked River.

“Doesn’t make sense,” the Doctor said, sonicing the cavern walls with careful precision.  “They’d need another species to do the work for them.”

“Could this be their native world?” asked River.

“What would they have evolved out of?” asked the Doctor.  “Thin air?  No, I’m still working on that one.”

“Their planet of origin?” asked River.

“No records,” the Doctor said.  “Nobody could remember enough to write anything down.  Even photographic images of them disappear over time.”  He flashed a grin at River.  “Until now.  Ha- _ha_!  Hello—what’s this?”

With a grating noise, a section of the cavern wall slid aside, revealing a passageway within.  It wasn’t dark—the corridor glowed from LED lights, set into the base of the walls.

“This is artificial,” River said.  “Someone must’ve built this—the servants of the Silents.”  She felt that odd presence even more strongly here—the very air seemed to breathe, to pulse with life.  River felt a surge of wild hope: would she and the Doctor discover some vital secret of the Silence—something that might weaken them, or knowledge that could be used against them?

“Come on,” she said, unholstering her blaster.

“You and your guns,” the Doctor half-teased.

River whipped around to face him.  “I have a score to settle with the Silence.”

He touched her nose.  “Don’t let that blind you.”

Flashing a wicked grin, River said, “No chance of that, sweetie.  I’m forged like steel.  Now, come on.”

(ii)

The corridor led them, after a few minutes, to a small square room whose walls were completely white and blank.

“Dead end?” asked River.

The Doctor soniced the walls, one by one, with small deliberate sweeps, not missing an inch.  At last, a small panel in one wall opened.

“Handprint,” River said.  “Four digits, middle finger much larger than the others.  It’s for the Silents.”

The Doctor soniced the panel; River listened as the instrument’s frequency changed, humming low, then whistling high, like a tea kettle.  She didn’t harbor much hope, but after a moment, the Doctor placed his hand into the impression.

A quiet vibration filled the room.  The Doctor stepped back, looking smug.

“How’d you manage that?” River asked.

“Changed the genetic interface to recognize my DNA,” he said.

As they watched, the smooth white walls began to rise, all four of them, revealing bank after bank of glowing panels, blinking lights, and small, square monitors.  All this hardware was set into a metal frame that gleamed a dull gold, like brass.  The overall effect was a curious mixture of high-tech and old-fashioned.

The Doctor went immediately to one of the glowing panels and placed both hands against the smooth surface.  The panel lit up, and River realized it was a keypad of some sort.

“This is it,” he said.

“The—the planetary entity?  It’s a computer?” River couldn’t help a certain amount of letdown.

“The computer _is_ the planet,” the Doctor said.  “The planet’s entire mantle, all that rock, is just a gigantic outer casing.  No wonder nothing ever evolved here—Gossan’s not a planet at all.”  The Doctor’s long fingers flew across the keypad.  “Someone or something created it.”

“How big?” River breathed, coming to stand beside him.

“Goes right through the planet’s core,” said the Doctor.  “This room is an access portal.”

River turned around, looking.  “So, who built all this?”

“Decavandaans, probably,” the Doctor said.

“They’ve been extinct for eons,” River said.

“They were brilliant engineers,” the Doctor said, “best known for creating artificial planets.  Their entire society was wiped out about ten thousand years ago.  Freak plague, that was the official reason.”

“You think the Silence…?”

“Got what they wanted,” the Doctor said, “and had no more use for them.”  He sounded grim, but not very surprised.

“Pretty ruthless, even by their standards,” River said.  “With their ability to erase memories, why didn’t the Silence just leave the Decavandaans alive, so they could be used again and again?”

“This computer is something they wanted to keep especially well-hidden,” the Doctor said.  “They weren’t taking any chances.”

“Maybe it contains information about their species,” River said.

“It’s more than a machine, though,” the Doctor said, aiming the sonic screwdriver at another panel.  “It’s a living entity, a living mind.  It holds more than just data—any computer could do that.  This massive computer… it’s alive.”

Without warning, music began to play, thoroughly incongruous with the surroundings, a weird digital transposition of horns and strings.  River recognized the tune after only a handful of notes; she’d heard it often enough growing up in Leadworth.  Hearing it now, under these circumstances, made her flesh crawl.

“‘Jerusalem,’” she said.  “Is this a joke?”

The computer monitors flashed to life, a logo appearing on each of them: a black Christian cross on a purple field, with a stylized heart where the horizontal line met the vertical.  Above the cross, a brass crown seemed to hover in midair.  In each corner of the screen was a small brass fleur-de-lis, set at a diagonal angle and pointing toward the cross.

“The emblem of the Silence,” the Doctor said.  “The symbol of their order, known only to members of the inner circle.  You may have seen it, or a variant on it, as a child, but you probably don’t remember.  The box where Dorium Maldovar’s head is kept has a similar design, but this is the real thing.”

“How do you know?” asked River.  “Did Dorium tell you?”

“No, I downloaded the information from the Tessalecta,” the Doctor said.  “The Justice Department was masquerading as Father Gideon Vandaleur, a Silence envoy who’d died.  He wore a medallion under his robes with this emblem on it.  The Silence must’ve evolved as a sect of Earth-based Christianity.”

“They’ve come a long way since then,” River snorted.  “Beheading their own followers?  The Church on Earth had it issues, but that’s still extreme.”

“They’re all part of the Silence,” the Doctor said.  “The Headless Monks, the Clerics, Madame Kovarian—all servants of the Silents.”

River pointed to the heart at the center of the cross.  “Headless Monks are said to follow their hearts, not their minds.  They’re supposed to be incorruptible because they don’t have independent will.  You can see that in the symbol, the crown floating over the space where the head would normally be.”

“Rubbish,” the Doctor said, his lip curling.  “Headless Monks are animated corpses, arms and legs for the thing that controls them.”

“Animated by what?” asked River.

“You’re standing in it, right now,” the Doctor said.

River goggled at him.  “This computer?”

The Doctor said, “River Song, meet the Papal Mainframe.”

(iii)

River didn’t know whether to feel elated or terrified.  “ _This_?” she said.

“What else would the Silents be guarding so zealously?” the Doctor asked.  “Why else would Gossan’s entire galaxy be off-limits for millennia?  Even poor Tremaine was shot down as a threat and his people picked off one by one because they got too close to Gossan’s orbit.”

“So it _was_ deliberate sabotage,” River said.

“One thing the Papal Mainframe didn’t count on,” the Doctor said.  “Random chance—the cyanide leaking down here and killing the Silents.  Leaving all this exposed.”  He grinned at River, a feral gleam in his eyes.

“Can we destroy it?” asked River.

“It’s too well-protected,” the Doctor said.  “Something this massive can’t be destroyed from the outside.  We’d have to set off a nuclear reaction at the core of the computer, blow the whole planet apart.”

“So what can we do?” asked River.  “We can’t just leave—we may never get this chance again.”

“We have to infiltrate the mainframe,” the Doctor said.  “Find its weakness.”

“How?” asked River.

“Back on Gallifrey, when Time Lords died, their consciousness would be uploaded into a giant computer called the Matrix, so all their wisdom and experience wouldn’t be lost,” the Doctor said.  “Time Lords could use the Matrix to communicate with the dead.”

“Fascinating,” said River.

“You think so?” asked the Doctor.  He sounded weirdly eager and hopeful—almost relieved.  River wondered why.

“Well, it sounds more appealing than the alternative,” she said.  “Do you think the Papal Mainframe is anything like the Gallifreyan Matrix?”

“It might be,” the Doctor said.  “Once, I entered the Matrix when a corrupt Time Lord had taken control of the system.”  He grimaced.  “Not a pleasant experience, either.”

“And that was on your home world,” River said.  “Doing that here would be walking unarmed into enemy territory.”

“It’s the only way,” the Doctor said.  “And I have to do it now; sooner or later, those Silents who died are going to be missed.  Someone in the Silence will realize the Mainframe is unguarded, and they’re going to come here in force.”

“I’m going with you, then.”

“Are you sure?” the Doctor asked.

Hands on her hips, River said, “You think I’m going to let you go in there alone?”

“I didn’t think you would.”

“If we don’t make it out alive, Tremaine and Marissa will die,” River said.

“If we don’t return to the TARDIS in five days, the ship will automatically take them to Symestine,” the Doctor said.  “I programmed the emergency protocol before we left.”

“Which would leave us stranded here,” River snorted.

“If we’re not out of the Papal Mainframe in five days, we’re not getting out at all,” the Doctor said.

River took a deep breath.  “What will we find in there?”

“A virtual reality landscape,” the Doctor said.  “It’ll feel like a living nightmare.  The Papal Mainframe will use our weaknesses against us.  It’ll try to frighten us, to make us relive our worst experiences.  You have to be strong, River.  You have to fight it—remember what you love, what you believe in.  And it’ll be clever—there’ll be tricks and traps that you might not expect.”

“Don’t you worry,” River said.  “I haven’t lived all these years to let a computer get the better of me.”

“That’s my girl,” the Doctor grinned.

“What does it want?” asked River.

“Oh, the usual things,” the Doctor said.  “Universal domination, probably; and to kill me as well.”

“For a particular reason, or just on general principles?”

“Because I’m the only one who can destroy it,” the Doctor said.  “The only one with the knowledge.”

River steeled herself.  “All right, then,” she said.  “How do we start?”

The Doctor used the sonic screwdriver to illuminate another couple of panels.  “You put your hands here,” he said.  “Your consciousness will merge with the Mainframe.”

“How do we get out?” asked River.

“By destroying the Mainframe,” the Doctor said.  “Strike a lethal blow.”

“How?” she repeated.

“Do something unexpected,” the Doctor said.  “Something that doesn’t make sense.”

“Well, that leaves loads of options,” River said.  “In other words, improvise?”

“It always works for me,” the Doctor said.  “Well, most of the time.  Well, maybe most of the time.  In fact—”

“Doctor,” said River, laughing nervously, “shut up.”

“Right,” he said, stepping in front of one of the panels.  “Remember—this is a machine, River.  You and me, together, we’re stronger than even the most powerful machine in the universe.  Hold onto that.”

River stepped up to the second panel.  “Ready?” she asked.

“On count of three,” the Doctor said.  “One—two—three—”

As one, River and the Doctor placed their hands on the glowing panels.  There was a loud, thundering mechanical noise, like a thousand jet airplanes lifting off at once.  And then everything went black.

(iv)

An irregular pattern of flickering light tickled the backs of River’s eyelids.  She blinked awake, turning.  As she did, bedsprings squeaked beneath her.  She realized she lay in a bed—a tiny bed, child-sized.  Overhead spun a mobile representing the solar system; it was the gleam of soft lamplight on golden planets and stars that had awakened her.

River sat, looking around.  The room was small, with a sloped ceiling.  She took in the furniture: a large wardrobe, a chest of drawers, a bookcase, a low table, none of the pieces quite matching.  Toys lay scattered across a hearth rug.  Against one wall stood a sink with a mirror above it, towels neatly folded on a metal drying rack nearby.  Beneath the sink was a child-sized chamber pot.  Outside the single small window, thunder rumbled, lightning flashed, and rain splashed the wavy glass.

“Oh, my God,” River said, then put a hand to her throat.  Her voice was young, high, childish.  She sprang from the bed and ran to examine her reflection in the mirror.  Her face—small and round—perhaps not a twin of young Amelia Pond, but close enough so that even a casual observer would recognize them as kin.  The hair, drawn back in two short pigtails, was not the brilliant crimson of her mother’s, more of a reddish-brown.

River whirled around.  Atop the chest of drawers sat an array of photos, mostly of River—Melody—by herself, growing from a toddler into a little girl.  There was one photo of Melody as an infant, hovered over by a smiling Amy.  River stared at it, baffled: had this been taken on Demon’s Run?  Surely not; Amy would never have smiled with such genuine, unforced joy under those circumstances.  River examined the shadowing and contours of the photo, deciding that the image had been digitally manipulated.

“To give me the facsimile of a normal childhood,” she said out loud.

The door to the room creaked open, and in stepped a small man of middle years, his appearance unkempt, his expression kindly but vacant.  He held a tray of food in his hands.  When he saw Melody looking at the pictures, he said, “So tragic about the accident.”  He had a warm voice, his accent suggesting the southern United States.  “But you’re safe here.  Yes.  You’re safe.” 

“That’s a filthy lie,” River shot.  Even as a child, she’d had a mouth on her.  “My mother is Amelia Pond.  My father is Rory Williams, the Last Centurion.  And when they find me, they’re going to kick your sorry arse.”

“Why do you say that?” Dr. Renfrew said, looking deeply hurt.  “You know those are lies.  Your parents, they died in a car accident.  Yes.  Why would you tell lies?”

River felt guilty for berating poor, befuddled Dr. Renfrew.  He was doing the best he could under the circumstances.

“Of course,” River said, still startled by her voice.  “The Silents would have no idea how to raise a human child, so I had to have a caretaker until I was old enough to function independently.”

Dr. Renfrew blinked at her adult vocabulary.  “Yes, yes,” he said.  “Yes.  I must care for the child.  It’s important.  They told me it’s important.”  He set down the tray on the small table.  “Your breakfast,” he said.  “It’s your favorite—eggs and toast and grits.  Yes.”

River ignored the food and his rambling.  “So, this is where the nightmare begins,” she said.  “Greystark Hall.  My home for the first—how many years?  Six?  Seven?”

“Not much longer, now,” Dr. Renfrew said.  “We close in two years.  In 1969.”

“It _is_ 1969, you idiot,” River said.  She squared her shoulders.  “I escaped from here once,” she said, one of her few childhood memories that remained intact.  “I can do it again.”

She marched out of the room into the gloomy, dimly-lit hallway.  She was in an attic, a garret on the top floor of the orphanage.  The rest of Greystark Hall might be falling into a ruin, but the door to Melody’s room was reinforced steel with a sturdy lock.  River laughed out loud when she saw it.  Clearly, the Silents knew how strong she would one day become.

She skipped along the hallway and raced down the stairs, past abandoned dormitories where children once had slept ten or twenty to a room.  Not Melody Pond, though—Melody had her own room at the top of the mansion, like a princess kept in the tall tower of a castle.  Down the stairs she went, past lettering Dr. Renfrew had painted in great, red splashes, like blood: GET OUT, a message to himself in his more lucid moments; LEAVE ME ALONE, a message to his tormentors.

River reached the first floor, the foyer lit only by irregular flashes of lightning.  Each streak of electric-white illuminated the interior of the once-grand house: the mildew, the peeling wallpaper, the dust and cobwebs, the broken old toys.

She tried the front door and, finding it unlocked, raced out into the night.  Immediately her thin night-dress was soaked through by the pouring rain, but Melody didn’t care: she ran down the crumbling stone steps, splashing through the big puddles in the driveway.

There was a high-pitched sonic whine, then a grinding noise that made Melody’s heart leap.  Out of nowhere appeared the blue box with the flashing light on top.  The door in the front opened, and a young man in a tweed jacket emerged.

“Melody Pond!” he exclaimed, scooping her up in his long arms.  “What are you doing out here in the rain, you naughty girl?”

“Escaping,” River said.

“No, you don’t, not yet—it’s too soon for that,” the Doctor said, carrying her back inside the orphanage and setting her down.  “I’ve brought some books for you—look, _Ivanhoe_ , and _Robinson Crusoe_.”  He drew out the two volumes from beneath his jacket.  “You like to read, don’t you?”

River responded by kicking the Doctor’s ankle, but she was barefoot and hurt herself more than him.  She howled in pain, hopping up and down.

“Silly girl,” the Doctor said, picking her up and kissing her forehead.

“Doctor, it’s me, it’s River,” she protested as he carried her up the stairs.  “We’re in the Papal Mainframe.  We need to find its weaknesses, its vulnerabilities.  We need to—”

“Shush,” he said, returning her to her room.  “Ah, hello, Dr. Renfrew.”

“The child needs to eat,” Dr. Renfrew said.  “Her breakfast is getting cold.”

“We’re all right, Dr. Renfrew,” the Doctor said.  “I’ve got this sorted.  Why don’t you get some sleep?”

“Yes,” Dr. Renfrew said.  “Sleep—yes.”  He shuffled out of the room.

When he was gone, the Doctor checked the corridor and popped back inside.  River stood shivering in her wet nightgown, dripping water onto the floor.

“First things first.”  The Doctor pulled a towel off the rack, dried Melody, and helped her change into a clean nightgown.

“Why does he give me breakfast at night?” River complained.

“Because he’s confused,” the Doctor said.  “Now, eat.  You need to keep up your strength.”

River glared at him.  “Don’t treat me like a child.”

He hunkered down to her level.  “You _are_ a child,” he said.  “At least for now.  It’s too early for you to break out of the orphanage.  You’ll escape when I come here with your parents and your older self and Mr. Delaware.  The Silents will be testing you out in an astronaut suit, but you can escape from it.  There’s a sort of wire in the back; you just have to wiggle your arm around and pull it until it breaks.”

“Why are you even here?” asked River.  “You never really came here when I was little.”

“Of course I did,” he said.  “When you told me who you are, I realized at once you must’ve been the little girl in the suit, so I came here.  The Silence brought you here from Demon’s Run.  You’ve been in Greystark Hall since 1963.”

River threw herself at him.  “Take me home!” she said.  “To Leadworth, to my mum and dad.”

“Shh,” the Doctor said.  “I can’t do that without rewriting your entire life.  And you’ll find your own way to Leadworth, very soon.”

In a sudden burst of anger, River said, “You never came here!  You’re just trying to salve your own miserable conscience!”

“Melody,” he said, “I did.  You just can’t remember it—the Silents wiped your memories.  But I visited all the time—your birthday, Christmas, every few months, making sure you were safe.”

“Then why don’t you rescue me?”

“Because if you grow up in Leadworth, with your parents, you’ll never be River Song.”  The Doctor looked unbearably sad, and more than a little guilty.  “You’d be Melody Pond, another girl in the village.  One day, you’re going to be a very powerful, very special woman, and you’re going to help so many people, but you’ll never do any of that if the Silence doesn’t raise you.”

“I’m lonely,” said River.  “I want my mum and dad.”

He kissed her forehead again.  “And they want you, but they don’t know they grew up with you—not yet.  Now, eat your breakfast and go to sleep.  It’s 1969 already, and you’ll escape in just a few weeks.”  River pouted, but the Doctor said, “I know it’s terrible to be lonely, but you’re safe here—you have food and shelter and someone to look after you.  The Silents won’t hurt you—you’re too valuable to them.”

“I’m special,” Melody boasted.

“Of course you are,” the Doctor said.  He waved his sonic screwdriver at the tray of food.  “There, that’ll warm it up.  Now, eat.”

River did as she was told: she ate, she relieved herself in the little chamber pot, and she crawled back into her bed.  The Doctor told her a story about the far-away planet Silane, where the crimson sun set every night in a cloud of green and purple gas.  Melody fell asleep listening to the sound of his voice, the most soothing sound she knew, the most wonderful sound in the universe.

(v)

When River awoke again, she was in the Florida warehouse, where the Silents had tested her in the astronaut suit.

“Wakey-wakey,” sang a familiar, hated voice.

“Oh, God,” River groaned, hauling herself off the floor to face Madame Kovarian, relieved to find herself in her adult body once more.  “If it isn’t the mutant lovespawn of Cruella de Ville and Mrs. Danvers.”

The literary references went right over Madame Kovarian’s head.  “We’ve waited so long for you, Melody.  All of us.”  River heard the hissing rattle of Silents, and she thought she saw the sweeping robes of Headless Monks in the shadows.

“The whole freak squad’s here,” River said. 

A few Silents emerged from the darkness, flanking Madame Kovarian.  “Your old friends,” she smiled.  “Your babysitters, remember?  Or not.”

“More your friends than mine,” River shot back.  “I’m sure you find plenty of use for those middle fingers on the cold, lonely nights.”

“So disrespectful,” Madame Kovarian said, her black-lipsticked mouth tightening in distaste.

“Says the woman who kidnaps children and decapitates her followers.”  River glanced around.  “What now?  I know about my childhood, Madame Kovarian.  I know how it began, how it ends, what I suffered.  And I know you lose.  Nothing you show me here can change that.”

“Oh, I’m not here to show you what you suffered,” Madame Kovarian said, still smiling, her voice honeyed and cloying.  “I’m here to show you what you missed.  Come with me.”  And she put her hand on River’s arm.

(vi)

At the touch of her hand, everything went blank again.  River awakened to the sound of birdsong, to flickering leaf shadow on a pale wall.  She blinked: her bedroom in Leadworth.

There was a knock on the door, and a young, brown-skinned woman poked her head inside.  “Melody,” she called out.  “Come on—training time.  We have a surprise for you.”

Melody leaped out of bed, washed, and dressed.  A surprise.  That could only mean a new type of weapon.  She was outside in the back garden before she remembered she had already lived this day, that she was experiencing a computer-generated simulacrum of her youth.

A small, burly white man waited in the wooded back lot behind the Zuckers’ cottage.  Like the woman, he appeared to be about thirty-five.  They were fifty-first century clerics, River knew, chosen because they could plausibly pass as the parents of a light-skinned black girl.

“Hey, Melody,” the man said.  His name was Trevor, and he spoke with an accent curiously between British and American.  River remembered their cover story—the Zuckers were Canadians, living in the village while Trevor worked as an engineer for a military contractor outside Gloucester.  Marlene—that was the woman’s name, or the name she was using here.

River decided to play along this time, hoping she could learn something about the Papal Mainframe.

“Hey, Dad,” she said.  “What’ve you got for me?”

He handed her a gleaming black gun.

“Cool!” exclaimed Melody, looking it over.  “A semi!”

“We figured you’re ready to move on from pistols,” Trevor said.  “This is a Glock 17 with a high-capacity magazine—you can get off 33 rounds before you need to change the clip.”  He demonstrated for Melody how to load and eject the gun’s magazine.  “You’ll need it when you face the Doctor—he’s one fast son of a bitch, and you’ll need to get to both hearts quickly.”

“Right,” said Melody.  “What’s this bit, here?”  She touched the barrel.

“A silencer,” Trevor said.

Marlene added, “Ideally, you’ll be somewhere secluded when you take him on—the fewer witnesses, the better.”

Trevor said, “With a gun like this, witnesses shouldn’t be an issue.  But either way, you don’t want to draw attention to yourself.”

“Hot damn,” said Melody.  “Can I have a machine gun next?”

Marlene and Trevor laughed.  “One thing at a time, Mels,” Trevor said.  “Now, why don’t you squeeze off a few rounds?”

Melody and her ersatz parents donned protective ear coverings; in addition, the Zuckers wore Kevlar vests.  As a precaution against accidents, or because they didn’t fully trust Melody?  No matter—River turned to the target, a plastic shop dummy about the same size and shape as the Doctor.  The Zuckers had even dressed the dummy in a tweed jacket and put a wig of floppy dark hair on its head.  Bracing her right wrist with her left hand, Melody fired the gun, steeling her body against the weapon’s recoil.  The Glock fairly leapt in her hands; River kept her arms locked and strong.  After fifteen rounds, she flipped the gun into her left hand, supporting the wrist with her right, and kept firing.

“Good work!” Trevor praised, slipping off his ear coverings.  “How does that feel?”

“Brilliant,” said Mels, tossing her hair a bit.

He handed her a pair of fresh clips.  “Now, try it again, and let’s see how quickly you reload.”

Mels repeated the drill, and when the first clip was spent, she ejected it and inserted the replacement, lightning fast, whipping up her arm to continue shooting, almost without missing a beat.

“Excellent speed,” said Marlene.  “You definitely have Time Lord reflexes.  Once you start using an energy blaster, there’ll be no stopping you.”

“When do I get to kill something that actually bleeds?” asked Mels.  “Making Swiss cheese out of shop dummies is getting a little dull.”

“When the time is right,” Trevor promised.

Marlene asked, “How are your parents progressing?”

“Dating,” shrugged Mels.  “I almost never see Amy anymore—she’s always off somewhere, shagging the Beak.”  Making a face, she said, “ _Please_ tell me I won’t get his nose next time I regenerate.”

Trevor and Marlene laughed, and Marlene said, “You won’t target the Doctor until Amy and Rory are married—otherwise, you’ll erase yourself from existence, and that would be a pity, wouldn’t it?”

“Damn straight.”  Melody played with the gun.  “What now?”

“Staff work,” said Trevor.

“Staves are boring,” Mels complained.  “This isn’t the freaking Middle Ages.  Can’t we at least do swords?”

Trevor shook his head.  They left the shooting range and moved to another part of the training field.  “The Doctor, for all his professed pacifism, is expert with any number of weapons.  Also, he’s brilliant at improvisation.  You never know when or where you’re going to encounter him, and you’ll need to be able to fight with anything you find at hand.  You could very well have to fight him in the Middle Ages.  Unfortunately for us, his followers—and even complete strangers—have a habit of sacrificing themselves to save or protect him, so you also never know who or what is going to get in your way.  You’ll need to be prepared for anything, Mels.  This is no ordinary target you’re going after.”

“But I’m the only one who can take him down,” Melody bragged.

“That’s right,” said Marlene, “the only being in the universe who could be remotely considered his equal.  But remember: take nothing for granted.  He hasn’t survived a thousand years by being stupid.”

Trevor tossed a long staff to Melody.  “Right, then,” he said.

Melody brandished the weapon, grinning widely.  “Have at it, Little John.”

(vii)

After dinner that night, the computer in the corner of the dining room began to bleep softly.

“We have company,” Trevor said, shifting to check the transmat module, disguised to resemble a tall china cabinet.  “It must be time for your progress report, Mels.  Look sharp.”

Marlene hastened to clear the dishes from the table; Mels grabbed a damp tea towel and wiped away the crumbs.  A few moments later, in a shimmer of light, Madame Kovarian appeared, flanked by a pair of armed clerics.

Marlene, Trevor, and Mels, stood at attention.  “Ma’am,” said Trevor.

“At ease,” said Madame Kovarian, and the Zuckers relaxed.  The gaze of her uncovered eye shifted to the youngest member of the trio.  “Hello, Melody.”

“Hey, Madame K,” said Mels, the only member of the Silence who dared to be so casual with the older woman.

“It’s six months,” Madame Kovarian said, not wasting any time.  “Show us.”

Marlene set up the laptop in the center of the table so that Madame Kovarian and the two clerics could have a clear view of the screen.  Marlene toggled a couple of keys, and a video began playing: a montage of Melody’s most recent training activities.  As Madame Kovarian watched, Melody climbed things, rappelled down cliff faces, engaged in hand-to-hand combat with Marlene and Trevor, swam the waters of a churning river, piloted a number of vehicles, and demonstrated expertise with weapons ranging from ancient to modern.

When the video finished, Trevor said, “And that doesn’t even include today’s work—she handles a Glock 17 better than our best operatives.”

Madame Kovarian gave a curt nod.  “Satisfactory.  How’s her schooling?”

“Exellent, as usual.”  Marlene toggled more keys, revealing Melody’s test results—not her Leadworth schooling, but her indoctrination in the history and philosophy of the Silence.

“Hm.”  Madame Kovarian never spoke more than strictly necessary; if there was a problem, though, the Zuckers would hear about it, and not kindly.  Madame Kovarian snapped her fingers three times in Melody’s face, and at once the girl went rigid, her gaze glassy.  “What is your name?”

“Melody Tabetha Pond, also known as Melody Zucker, or Mels.”

“What are you?”

“A loyal acolyte of the Silence, Ma’am.”

“What is your purpose?”

“To kill the Doctor, Ma’am, and to permanently end the threat he represents to the Silence.”

“Very good.”  Madame Kovarian snapped her fingers once, and Mels relaxed.  “Since your training is progressing so well, it’s time we gave you something special.”  Madame Kovarian reached into an inner pocket of her jacket.  “You’ll never bring down the Doctor with any conventional weapon.  He’s too wily for that.  He has another weakness, though, one you can easily exploit.”

“What’s that?” asked Melody.

Smirking, Madame Kovarian said, “He can’t resist a pretty face.”  She handed a slim metal tube to Melody.  It looked like an ordinary cosmetics tube, save that there was a cap at each end.  Melody unscrewed one cap, finding within a lipstick of a pale, waxy substance.

“I usually like something a little darker,” said Mels.  “This won’t really work with my complexion.”

“It’s a silicone base,” Madame Kovarian said.  “It’s colorless.  Put it on before you use the other end, unless you want to die an especially nasty death.”  She said this last with particular relish.

Melody carefully unscrewed the second cap, which revealed a glass roller ball, similar to those found in purse-sized perfume vials.

“Use a tiny amount,” Madame Kovarian said.  “It penetrates the skin in seconds.”

Melody sniffed, detecting a faint herbal tang.  “What is it?”

“Poison from the Judas tree,” Madame Kovarian said, her eye aglow.  “So named because of its use in poisoned kisses.”

“I have to kiss him?  The Doctor?” asked Melody.

“One quick, light touch,” Madame Kovarian said.  “And don’t lick your own lips until you’ve washed off the poison, otherwise you’ll be just as dead.  The poison is fatal within thirty minutes, and is more painful than the sting of a jellyfish.  Well—that’s what the prisoner we tested it on said before he died, in between all the writhing and screaming in agony.”

“Is there a cure?”  Melody screwed the cap back onto the tube.

“None,” said Madame Kovarian.

“The Doctor will just regenerate,” said Melody.

“The poison also contains an enzyme to block regeneration,” Madame Kovarian said.  “Something we developed with the aid of _your_ DNA, my sweet.”  She laughed.  “Remarkable how useful a few stem cells can be.”

Marlene said, “Take extra care, Mels.  That poison could kill you just as easily as the Doctor, and you wouldn’t be able to regenerate.”

“Point taken.”  Mels made sure both ends of the tube were tightly capped.

“Keep it with you at all times,” Madame Kovarian ordered.

“Yes, Ma’am.”  Melody slipped the vial down into her cleavage.

“Until November, then.”  Madame Kovarian gestured to the two clerics.

“Yes, Ma’am,” the three Zuckers chorused, standing at attention until Madame Kovarian and her attendants had vanished into the teleport.

“Good work,” said Marlene.  “She doesn’t show much, but she’s pleased with your progress, Mels.”

Melody said, “Do I get an eyepatch, too?”

“Only members of the Inner Sanctum wear an eye drive,” Marlene said.  “That’s a privilege you have to earn.”

Trevor said, “Bring down the Doctor, and almost certainly you’ll be elevated to the Inner Sanctum.  Most of us have to wait years, but you’re a vital asset to the Order.”

Melody stretched.  “So, what happens after I kill the Doctor?  What do I do then?”

Trevor said, “Other missions, naturally.  The Silence has other enemies, not just the Doctor, though not nearly as dangerous.  You’ll be sent into the field as required, and you’ll have a cover identity when you’re not on assignment.”

“‘Kay,” said Mels.  Her left hip pocket began to vibrate, and she withdrew her phone.  “Got a text,” she said, opening the message.  “It’s from Amy.”  Melody barked a short laugh.  “The Beak popped the question.  They’re getting married in a year—June 2010.  Beaky insisted they set a date right away, the big lump.  He’s probably worried Amy’ll scarper in the middle of the night.  Oh, Christ, I suppose she’ll want me in her wedding.  I better think of a good excuse.  Maybe I can have measles.”

“Excellent,” said Marlene, glancing at Trevor.  “The time is getting closer.  We better step up your training.”

Melody patted the front of her blouse, where the vial of poison lay hidden.  “Just say the word.”

(viii)

River blinked.  She was back in the warehouse again, Madame Kovarian watching her reactions to everything the Papal Mainframe revealed.

“So?” said River.  “Was there a point to all that?”

“To remind you of where you came from, and how much further you could have gone.”

“As an assassin in the employ of the Silence?” asked River.  “No, thank you.”

“We made you what you are,” Madame Kovarian said.  “All your skills and cunning—we trained you, don’t forget.  You’d never be the River Song whose very name strikes terror in the hearts of her adversaries, if not for us.”

“Your loss,” River shrugged.

“ _Your_ loss,” Madame Kovarian countered.  “You could be the most powerful woman in all of time and space, with more wealth and influence than most pathetic species can even imagine.  And you threw it all away for that flop-haired, meddlesome prat.”

“‘But what shall it profit a woman, if she gains the whole universe, and lose her own soul?’” River misquoted.

Madame Kovarian’s eye rolled.  “Human drivel,” she said.  “It was a mistake to let you be raised on Earth—you’ve become one of them.  Weak.  Soft.  Superstitious.”  Smiling, she said, “It’s not too late, Melody.  You could still join us.  We’re more forgiving than you’d think.”

River snorted.  “I’d rather die.”

“That can be arranged,” Madame Kovarian said, putting her hand on River’s arm again.

(ix)

The enormous industrial clothes washers and dryers droned, a neverending din, churning their way through cycle after cycle as they cleaned the prison uniforms and linens.  The heat generated by the machines was fierce, turning the laundry into a boiling sauna.  River and three other female prisoners worked in sleeveless tops and thin trousers, yet they gleamed with sweat.

Today was Krystal’s turn to watch over them, a petite, homely member of the prison staff.  Unlike so many other Stormcage employees, Krystal seemed perfectly content to remain in the prison, running the airless, overheated laundry.  Her colorless hair, yanked back in a ponytail, did nothing to soften her harsh features and pockmarked skin.  But she was a fair taskmistress, allowing the prisoners plenty of breaks for water, and she kept the three tiny, ceiling-level windows open at all times.

Halfway through River’s shift, Landers Gordon, one of the female guards, appeared.

“They behaving?” she asked, jutting her chin toward the four inmates.

“Yeah,” said Krystal.  “They’re good.”

Landers drew off her helmet.  “How the fuck do you stand it in here?” she asked.

Krystal shrugged her twig-like shoulders.  “You get used to it.”

Landers leaned against the work table.  She was a tall, handsome woman—ambitious, River thought.

“You free later?” Landers asked Krystal.

The laundress shook her head.  “Nope.”

“I thought we could get a drink,” said Landers.

“Sorry, nope.”  Krystal turned her back, loading some sheets into a clothes washer.  River watched the whole exchange from the corner of her eye as she folded clean uniforms.  Krystal finished her task, turning, clearly perturbed to find Landers still there.

“It’s not serious with the chocolate pudding, is it?”

“None a’ ya fucken business,” spat Krystal.

“Woo-hoo,” said Landers.  “That lump?  She must munch a mean rug.  I mean, Christ, she’s massive.  How do you find her pussy under all that blubber?”

“Shaddup,” said Krystal, her rat-like face mottled with anger.

“You don’t know what you’re missing,” said Landers.  “Tell you what—one date.  I’ll bet my next month’s salary you never want that freak to touch you again.”

“Fuck off,” said Krystal.

“Make me!”  Landers grabbed Krystal, throwing her into one of the huge metal washers, causing the smaller woman to howl in pain.  “You scrawny fucking little twat!”

This was more than River could tolerate.  In one swift bound, she was across the laundry room floor.  Landers saw her coming, but too late.  River aimed her kick at the back of the knee, where the two pieces of leg armor were joined together, one of the only vulnerable spots.  Landers yelped, the leg buckling beneath her, and River decked her with a stunning blow to the temple.

“Get out of here,” River told Krystal, knowing just how ugly things were going to get.

Krystal darted from the room.  A moment later, two male guards rushed in, each wielding a heavy black truncheon.  They lit into River, throwing her into the machines and then down to the floor, where they beat and kicked her until the room went black.

River came to awareness some indefinite span of time later, unable even to open her eyes.  Something hard and horrid was in her nose, her mouth, her throat.  She thrashed and flailed, but found herself completely immobilized.  She heard a voice, and a moment later the blackness rose up again.

When she came around, the breathing tube had been removed, and she could open her left eye a slit, enough to realize she was in the prison infirmary.  This time she didn’t try to move: every single fiber of her body was a searing, screaming inferno of pain.  A few moments later, a shadow crossed her tiny field of vision, and the world went blank.

The next time she awoke, she was able to make at least a small croaking noise.  She heard a chair scrape, and a rough voice nearby said, “Don’t try ta’ move so much.  Ya healin’ fast, but ya still got a ways to go.”

River groaned again, and the voice said, “I’ll getcha some morphine.”

Each time River regained consciousness after that, she had a bit more vision, a bit more mobility.  She could lift her head with effort and take a few sips of water, but most of her nutrition came via an intravenous line.  At last, the day came when she could sit upright and look down at the casts: both arms, and her left leg.

At the next change of shifts in the infirmary, a staggeringly obese black-skinned woman took over River’s care.  “I’m Tassinelli, Tass for short,” she said.  River recognized her rough voice.

“What does the other guy look like?” River wheezed.

“Ya lucky ta’ be alive,” said Tass, checking beneath the bandages on River’s head.  “Ya looked like raw meat when they brotcha here.”  For all her great size and butch demeanor, her touch was gentler than River would have imagined possible.  “Thanks.”

River blinked.  “For what?”

“For protectin’ Krystal from that whore Landers.”

River recalled what Landers had said: _chocolate pudding_.  Of course.  Tass and Krystal must be lovers.  The racial slur would have enraged River if she’d had more strength.

“It was my pleasure, for about ten seconds,” she said.

Tass oversaw River’s treatment and recovery, sneaking her treats from the canteen and books from the library.  When River’s face wasn’t such a horror show, Valeria came in to visit, and from the way she started and blanched, River could guess the extent of the damage; Tass hadn’t allowed River access to a mirror.  Every day, the nurse remarked on how amazingly well River was healing: no scarring, no disfiguring lumps of tissue, her flesh seeming to leap back together into its normal configuration.  Even her broken bones were completely mended in less than a month.  Her immune system, her Time Lord’s ability to mend, was restoring not only River’s health but her beauty.

The emotional healing took longer.  Every night, River waited for the Doctor to appear—surely by now he would wonder why she wasn’t in her usual cell and come looking for her.  She wanted terribly to see him, to be reassured by his voice, his touch.  But his absence dragged on, and every day, River sank a bit further into despair.

On the day River was scheduled to return to her cell, the vice-commandant of the women’s prison arrived in the infirmary.  Since River had attacked a prison guard, she was sentenced to solitary confinement, beginning immediately.  Tass protested, to no avail.  Now that River no longer required medical attention, she could begin serving her sentence.  Rules were rules, and attacking a prison guard carried an automatic penalty of six months in solitary.

“The Pit,” as it was known in Stormcage, consisted of cells in the basement of the prison, tiny windowless oubliettes in the thick, lower walls of the fortress, the doors made of impenetrable black steel.  There was a narrow cot, a sink, and a toilet.  Nothing else was allowed, not writing material, not even a book.  The single light blinked on in the morning and blinked out again at night, leaving the cell in Stygian darkness for ten hours.  No sound penetrated the walls, not even the churning of the ocean outside.  Twice a day, meals were delivered through a hatch at the base of the door.  Once a week, River was allowed out to shower; that was the only human contact she had, the only sense of time passing.  Day after interminable day, she laid on her cot in the cell, too numb even to move.

And still the Doctor did not come.

Three and a half weeks into her sentence—she knew how much time it had been because she’d had three showers—the door opened, and two guards put River in shackles.  She was escorted up to her usual cell, unshackled, and locked in her cell without any explanation.  For a full forty-eight hours, River lay on her cot, breathing in the cool scent of rain and sea air, listening to the joyous symphony of thunder and crashing waves, watching the lightning flash on her cell walls, feeling as though she’d been delivered from Hell into paradise.

The third day after her release, Valeria was allowed to visit, bringing River a large stack of books from the library.  The visit was brief, five minutes, supervised by a hovering guard outside, but River learned what had happened.  Tass and Valeria had appealed to the prison commandant to review River’s case.  Krystal had testified on River’s behalf.  At last, the commandant agreed to view the security tape from the laundry room.  If River had acted in self-defense, the sentence would have been upheld, but because she’d acted in Krystal’s defense, the sentence was commuted to confinement in her cell.  For the remaining five months, River had no gym or library privileges, but she had light and fresh air, and after nearly a month in the Pit, she valued those things more than gold.  She anticipated also that the Doctor would come and take her for their usual adventures, but his absence continued, and River began to fear he might have died for real this time.

At last, her punishment ended, and River was allowed to begin using the library and gym once more, to mingle with the other prisoners.  She learned through gossip that fate had taken its own revenge: one of the male guards who’d beaten River had slipped while patrolling the outer battlements of the fortress and fallen to his death in the ocean below.  The second male guard had been demoted for persistent drunkenness and transferred to an installation on another part of the planet.  And Landers, the lecherous female guard, had eaten a piece of contaminated fruit and died an agonizing death from an intestinal parasite.  River suspected Tass had had a hand in that one, but she said nothing.  Professor Candy visited, and River resumed her archeological reading and writing.

Three months after that, the Doctor appeared, acting, as usual, as if it had been only five or ten minutes since their last meeting.  River sometimes debated telling him what had happened, but the whole incident was done and over, the perpetrators gone, and River, her spirits mostly restored, opted not to add any more weight to the burden of guilt the Doctor already carried.

(x)

“So very noble of you,” Madame Kovarian said.

River shot back, “Did you really think making me relive all that could make me return to the Silence?”

“The Doctor doesn’t love you nearly as much as you think he does,” Madame Kovarian said.  “You’re one in a long line of women for him.”

“You think I don’t know that?” River asked.  “I’d rather have three minutes’ love from the Doctor than a lifetime of sham affection from someone like you.”

“Look how long he was away when you needed him most,” Madame Kovarian said, gloating.  “His absences will get longer and longer and longer, until one day, he’ll never come back.  Is that what you want?  A life of imprisonment, all to protect a man who’ll forget you even exist?”

River laughed.  “You don’t get it, do you?” she said.  “Stormcage was the first time in my life I was completely outside the control of the Silence.  Ironic, isn’t it?  Behind bars, even in the Pit, I was never so truly free.”

“You will _never_ be free from us,” Madame Kovarian hissed.  She snapped her fingers three times in front of River’s face, but River didn’t blink.

“Sorry,” she smiled.  “I overcame that conditioning a long time ago.  Throw your worst at me, Madame Kovarian.  My mind will always be my own, no matter what you do.”

“Then perhaps you need to walk a path not taken,” Madame Kovarian said, putting her hand on River’s wrist.

(xi)

Sunlight and birdsong awakened River.  She turned over and blinked, sitting up.  She stared around.  She knew this room—she’d passed so many hours in here, listening to stories about the Doctor and sharing idle village gossip, later watching her parents fall in love.  Amy’s bedroom in the Ponds’ house in Leadworth.

A rapping at the door broke into her thoughts.  “It’s morning, Sleepyhead.  Are you gonna sleep through your entire birthday?”

“It’s my birthday?” said River, startled by her voice—a child’s voice once more.

The door opened a few inches, and Amy peered inside.

“Of course it’s your birthday,” she said.  “What kind of dream were you having, anyway?”

“A really strange one,” said Melody, scratching her head.

“Well, come on downstairs.”

_This isn’t real_ , River thought, padding across the hallway to the bathroom.  Reflected back at her in the mirror stared a young face, perhaps three years older than the last time she’d seen it, longer and slimmer, less childish.

_This never happened_.  River washed her face at the sink.  _I never grew up in this house.  I didn’t even live beyond seven years in this body_.

She cleaned her teeth and brushed her hair—shoulder length now and a lustrous, rich chestnut color, full of red and gold highlights.  River lingered over the sensation of it running through her fingers.  _Amazing hair.  What a beautiful color—I’d love to have this color again_.  She leaned closer to the mirror, examining her face.  Freckled skin, full pink lips, blue eyes— _Rory’s eyes_.

In the kitchen, Amy was cooking bacon and eggs, and the scent made River salivate.  Unable to shake the sheer reality of this vision, she sat at the table and poured a glass of orange juice.  Across the table, Rory lowered his newspaper.

“Happy birthday,” he smiled.  “Ten years old.  Double digits.  How does it feel?”

“Brilliant,” said Melody.  “It’s a birthday in binary code.”

Her parents both laughed, and Amy set a plate of food in front of Melody.  She ate, disconcerted by the sights, sounds, and scents, all the textures of memory.  The eggs were delicious—fresh from their own hens, Melody knew.  She could remember helping Amy clean the chicken coop only a day or two earlier.  The bacon, she knew, came from a hog farm outside Leadworth.  Around the kitchen were set flowers in vases—Amy’s flowers, from her garden.  Those vases Amy had thrown, glazed, and fired herself.  Melody had chosen some of the colors.

Amy and Rory looked exactly the way River thought they’d look in their early thirties.  Rory’s hair had darkened from sandy-blond to a medium brown, while Amy’s auburn mane had faded a bit to a lighter red.  Both had faint lines River had never seen on them—creases around their eyes from laughing and pleasant, wavy forehead lines from lifting their brows.

The house looked different from how it had been when Augustus and Tabetha had lived there—Melody knew her grandparents had retired to the Cotswolds, a move they’d made with Amy’s financial assistance.  Amy and Rory had bought the house from them, redecorating it to their own tastes.  Melody could remember all of it: the day her grandparents had moved, the smells of paint and plaster dust from the renovations.

The door burst open, and in flew a boy of about six, whip-thin, his hair a vast white-blond pile, eyes wide and gray-green.

“Mum,” he said, “Dad, there’s a—”

“Oh, my God!” Melody blurted.

Three heads turned to stare at her.

“What?” the boy said.

“You’re my brother,” said Melody.

“Of course he’s your brother, silly,” said Amy, folding her arms.  “What’s wrong with you?  Did the Doctor come and take you for a spin in the TARDIS last night?”

Rory clicked his tongue.  “Not ‘till you’re at least eighteen; we keep telling him that.”

Melody couldn’t stop staring at the young boy, who looked exactly as Rory had at the same age.

“What?” he asked, sticking out his tongue at her.

“Bri, that’s rude,” Amy reprimanded.  “Now, what’d you see?”

“A pheasant,” the boy answered.  “It was under the hedge.”

“Dinner,” said Rory, returning to his paper.

“Ew,” said Amy.

“We eat the chickens when they’re too old to lay eggs,” Melody said.

“Those are our birds,” said Amy.  “They’re not… wild animals.”  She told the boy, “Wash your hands and have some breakfast.”

He did as she said, sitting at the table.  Brian.  That was his name—Brian Augustus Williams, after Rory’s and Amy’s fathers.  Melody watched him eat.  A younger sibling.  Of course—Amy and Rory surely would have other children, children who would grow up very like this—the life River had never experienced.  The fragmented memories of her lonely, frightened years in Greystark Hall hurt now with unexpected intensity.

For a while, Melody sat at the table in the kitchen, basking in her parents’ love, in the security of an ordinary home.  She knew it was all a mirage, but she nevertheless wanted it to continue and never stop.

“C’mon, Mels,” Amy said when the meal ended.  “Get your Wellies.”

Outside, beneath the balmy spring sun, Melody helped her mother weed vegetables and water the flowers.  The wild jungle from Augustus and Tabetha’s days had been tamed, replaced with ordered rows of vegetables and terraced beds of flowers.  Wire fencing enclosed a chicken coop and yard.  There were several outbuildings: a couple of sheds and a large structure that Melody recognized as Amy’s studio.

Everything felt absurdly real: the warm sun, the soil beneath Melody’s hands, the rough shapes of roots, the slim new shoots of vegetables, as pale green as limes, reaching up toward the sky.  Amy also grew raspberries, and Melody knew there would be strawberries in another three months.  In the distance lay an orchard of apple and pear trees, their limbs lacy with tender young leaves; soon, they would be heavy with blossoms.  When Melody wiped sweat off her forehead, she could feel the gritty smear of dirt her hand left behind.

When they finished in the garden, Amy went back into the kitchen, Melody on her heels.

“Time to bake a cake!” Amy sang out.

Melody assisted, following her mother’s directions: measuring ingredients, melting chocolate, cracking eggs, watching everything fold together into a smooth batter.  Amy poured the chocolate in last, the batter turning from a creamy white to a creamy brown.  Melody greased and floured five small, round, rather flat pans, which Amy filled with cake batter.

“Right,” said Amy, setting a timer.  “That’ll take a bit—why don’t you go out and play for a while?”

Melody thought this a wonderful suggestion.  For the next two hours, she explored Leadworth on her red bicycle, discovering that very little had changed since her days as Melody Zucker.  Indeed, it began to seem to her that those days had never existed, or that they had happened in another timeline.  How could this world not be real?  Everyone and everything she saw, she recognized.  She knew the history of each house, the personality of each villager she passed.

Melody bicycled as far as Upper Leadworth, joining some local children as they played in the ruins of the castle.  When the afternoon sun began to slant down the sky, Melody cycled back to Leadworth and home.  She rode slowly, marveling at the verisimilitude of this vision.  Grass that had been dewy in the morning now stood dry.  Shadows cast by trees and buildings had changed in response to the sun’s position.  A faint breeze had picked up, and overhead, clouds sailed across the heavens, not white, but blue and gray and lavender, shot through with gold where the sun’s rays touched them.  Melody could smell farms and wood smoke and newly-mowed grass, as well as the ineffable scent of springtime.  How could this world not be real?

In Melody’s absence, Amy had decorated the house with green and purple balloons and the dining room table with a tablecloth and napkins in the same colors.  A stack of wrapped gifts sat in one corner.  Amy had assembled the five layers of the cake with luscious buttercream frosting and topped the entire confection with ten purple candles.  In the oven, a chicken roasted.

“Go and wash,” Amy said, laughing at Melody’s expression.

Family arrived: Aunt Sharon, Rory’s father, two of his cousins, and their children.  Just as Amy began serving dinner, Augustus and Tabetha arrived, embracing Melody and exclaiming at how much she’d grown.  The meal was a noisy, wonderful cacophony of voices and laughter.  Melody could barely process the conversation; she sat enveloped in a cocoon of the most intense joy possible.

After the meal came the gifts: not children’s toys, but sophisticated novels and scholarly works, games and Mensa-designed puzzles, all to challenge Melody’s precocious intelligence.  The final present was in a large box, wrapped in newspaper and tied with string.  The newspaper, Melody saw, was covered in words she recognized without difficulty as Portuguese.

“Someone was in Brazil,” Rory remarked.

Melody cut the string and tore away the paper, gasping at the image on the box.

“A telescope!” she shrieked.

Amy put an arm around her.  “Now you can look at the stars up close.”

“Who was that from?” asked Tabetha.

“The Doctor,” said Amy.  “He left it here on his last visit.”

“That mad bloke from the wedding?” laughed Augustus.  “You never did tell us the secret of his vanishing trick with the blue box.”

Melody looked around, pouting.  “Where is he?”

“You know he can’t be at _every_ birthday,” Amy said gently.

Rory said, “We’re having a skylight put in the roof this summer,” he said.  “The attic can be your observatory.  How do you like that?”

Melody wiggled with excitement.  “That sounds brilliant.  Thanks, Daddy!”

Amy said, “Next time the Doctor visits, he can show you how to use the telescope—if you haven’t worked it out on your own by then.”

“The manual’s in Portuguese, but that won’t stump the wonder-kid for long,” Rory said.

“She’ll be starting uni by the time she’s twelve,” Tabetha smiled.

“She’s almost there now,” Amy laughed.

“What are you going to read at uni?” Tabetha asked Melody, bemused.

“Astrophysics,” said Melody.  “Or maybe rocket science.  I want to build a spaceship, so I can travel in outer space.”

Her younger brother, sitting in Rory’s father’s lap, announced, “I want to be a fireman.”

Brian kissed the top of his young namesake’s head.  “There’s a good lad,” he said.  “No trips to Mars for you, then?”

“Please,” said Rory.  “I’d like at least one of my kids to keep their feet on Earth.”

(xii)

The party lingered well into the evening, when at last the guests began to disperse.  Augustus and Tabetha sat in the parlor, catching up on village gossip with Aunt Sharon.  Upstairs, Rory ran a bath for young Brian while Amy helped Melody stow her gifts.

“Want to wear your pretty new jim-jams tonight?” Amy asked.

Melody sat on the bed, gazing seriously at her mother.

Amy said, “If you’re in a strop because the Doctor didn’t come to your party—”

“This isn’t real,” Melody said.  “None of this is real, Mummy.  I never grew up here.  I grew up in a creepy old orphanage in America.”

“In another timeline, you did.”  Amy sat on the bed also.  “It’s okay; I know you can remember that.  But the Doctor changed your life after he defeated the Silence.”

“No, he didn’t,” said Melody.  “He never defeated the Silence.  Well, he hasn’t yet.”

Amy had the patient, tolerant look of a parent dealing with a child who insists their imaginary friend really exists or a fairy tale is in fact true.

“He did,” said Amy.  “He loves you so much; he’d do anything for you.”

“I don’t want to be Melody Pond!” Melody burst out.  “I want to be River Song, traveling in time and space and marrying the Doctor.”

“You were willing to give that up so we could raise you,” Amy said.

“The Doctor—”

“He gave up the chance to be married to you,” Amy said.  “He sacrificed his own happiness so that Daddy and I could have you back as a baby and raise you properly, here in Leadworth.  You both agreed to it.  When the war with the Silence was over, he went back to Florida and rescued you from Greystark Hall.  You’ve been here in Leadworth with us since you were six months old.”  Amy reached over to stroke her daughter’s hair.  “I know it’s confusing, sweetie—the same thing happened to me, remember?  I had two different childhoods, and I remember both of them.”

Melody sat on the bed, staring at Amy, stunned.  For one wild instant, she thought Amy spoke truth, that this marvelous world was real, that this timeline existed.  The Papal Mainfame’s cunning knowledge of the Doctor’s personality was what made this vision so very plausible.  He would willingly sacrifice his very life for the well-being of others; how much more readily he would give up his chance at fleeting happiness with the woman he loved.

Melody pondered this—would she be willing to make the same sacrifice?  Give up her life, everything that made her River Song, her marriage to the Doctor, in order to restore Amy and Rory’s child to them, to give them the chance to raise their daughter, a chance they thought they’d lost forever?  Melody was honest enough to recognize her own selfishness.  She didn’t want that.  As difficult has her life had been, it was _her_ life, and it had made her what she was: strong, capable, clever, resourceful, even ruthless.  Madame Kovarian was right: River would never be any of those things without the intervention of the Silence.

Still stroking Melody’s hair, Amy said, “Don’t fuss; the Doctor’ll probably turn up here on your eighteenth birthday and whisk you off into the time vortex before Daddy and I can blink.”  She laughed and said, “Maybe we can have a proper wedding this time.  I’m sure there’s no getting out of being his mother-in-law.”

Melody made a noise of protest, but Amy said, “This world is real, Melody—this is your life.  Your life as River Song doesn’t exist now.”  Amy reached over, pulling Melody into a maternal embrace, warm with the scent of her latest fragrance.  “Aren’t you happy here?  You’re safe and loved, and nothing can hurt you.”

Amy’s arms, so full of love and reassurance, began to feel like velvet chains, and even her voice was cloying.  Melody yanked herself free and yelled, “It’s a lie!  It’s all a lie!  I hate you!  This never happened!”

Amy was on her feet now, full of menace, green eyes flashing anger, red hair standing out from her head, her demeanor that of an ancient Celtic warrior-queen—powerful and fearsome.  “You ungrateful little monster!  Look at all that’s been done for you, how much we’ve given up for you, and this is how you thank us!”  Remarkable how Amy’s voice had begun to resemble Madame Kovarian’s.

Melody grabbed the nearest object at hand: the box containing the telescope.  With all her strength, she threw it through the window.  The glass exploded outward, and a sucking, whooshing vacuum filled the bedroom, as if Melody had blown the airlock on a spaceship.

“Melody, no!” Amy cried, reaching out to grab her daughter, but River allowed herself to be carried out the window and into the black nothingness of space

(xiii)

The cold chill persisted, even when she woke up.  River found herself lying on a concrete floor, shivering in a bitter wind.  Around her were the steel posts of a half-finished skyscraper, sheets of plastic fluttering and whipping every which way.  River remembered this place well: the building she’d fallen from in 1969.  Strange to think now that her older self had been traversing America, investigating the Silence, all while her younger self had been a prisoner in Greystark Hall.

“Remarkable.”  Madame Kovarian melted out of the shadows.  She was alone now, and without the Silents or the Clerics or the Headless Monks, she seemed smaller, diminished, older.  “Even when tempted with your heart’s greatest desire, you resist.”

“Nothing you can do or say would ever change how I feel about the Doctor,” River said.

“Nothing?” Madame Kovarian smiled.  “Oh, I could tell you some things about him that would change your mind, Melody.  Secrets he’s keeping from you.  You don’t really think it was coincidence that those two Stormcage guards died so soon after the attack on you?”

River said, “You’ll have to do better than that, Madame Kovarian.”

“Or how about the biggest secret of all?  The one he’s been keeping since first he met you?  The one he will never, ever tell you?”  Madame Kovarian laughed.  “Why don’t you ask your precious Doctor about that?  The answer might surprise you.”

The wind was cold at River’s back as she edged towards the precipice.  “I don’t care,” she said.  “Unlike you, I’ve learned that some things can’t be controlled or predicted, and that’s one of the joys of life.”

Madame Kovarian’s expression changed when she realized what River was going to do.  “Melody, no,” she said.  “Your life… your whole life!  You could be so much more than this!”

“Or so much less,” River said.

Madame Kovarian’s mouth trembled.  “My little girl,” she said.  “My precious little girl, who I raised like my own daughter.”

“You’re not my mother,” River shot back.  “Amelia Pond is my mother, and she’s a million times the woman you’ll ever be.”  The ledge was at River’s back now, the streets of New York City fifty floors below, a vertiginous plunge straight down.  “Do you know why the Silence failed to defeat the Doctor?  Because they put a sadistic diva like you in charge.”

“He won’t always be there to save you, you know,” Madame Kovarian said.  “And then only death will be waiting for you.”

“If it’s a choice between dying and being a plaything of the Silence,” River told her, “I’d rather die.”  She opened her arms wide.  “Goodbye, Madame Kovarian.”  And she dropped back into the cold embrace of the dark night.

(xiv)

At the instant of impact, River’s eyes popped open.  She stepped away from the glowing panel, gasping.  A moment later, the Doctor also opened his eyes, jumping back from the control board, shouting something inarticulate, arms flailing.

She faced him, and the first question out of her mouth was a surprise even to River.

“Doctor,” she demanded, hands on her hips, “why did you kill those guards?”

**To be continued…**


	4. Half-Sick of Shadows--Chapter Three

_Chapter Three_

The loud roaring resolved into music—incongruous music: mellow, unobtrusive jazz.  The Doctor caught the scent of spirits and the smoke from countless generations of cigars and cigarettes.  He stood in some kind of store-room: crates piled against the walls, furniture swathed beneath dust-sheets.  He made his way forward through the gloom, toward an archway illuminated by soft light filtering through a beaded curtain.  The Doctor pushed aside the beads and entered the room, blinking in surprise.

He recognized this place: a drinking den in World War II London.  He’d come here looking for the Chula medical transport ship that Jack Harkness had sent crashing to Earth.  On the walls, posters reminded patrons about air raids.

The room was empty, though, save one large, round table, around which sat eight men playing cards.  The Doctor approached the group, disbelief mounting inside him.  His eyes scanned the hair, the faces, the clothes.  It was him—his past selves—well, the first eight of them, anyway.  The Doctor couldn’t tell what game they were playing, but they’d divided into teams, and the Doctor observed with interest how they’d paired off.

One and Six had formed an alliance—naturally, the Doctor thought: both of them united in their arrogance and puffed-up sense of self-importance.  Two and Seven—the small, devious clowns—were another pair.  Three and Four—tall and lordly, secure in their imposing physical presence—worked together, looming over their fellows.  The Doctor forced himself to look at Eight—the pariah, the one who’d lost the Time War.  Not too surprisingly, Five, the kindest of the lot, had taken the outcast under his protective wing.  None of them were speaking, the game carried out in silence, the only sounds the occasional quiet snap of cards being placed on the table.

The Doctor tore his gaze away from the table, scanning the room, searching for his two most recent incarnations.  There—at a small table in a far corner.  Nine was reading, obscured by the newspaper he held: the Doctor identified him by the large hands and the cuffs of his black leather coat.  Facing Nine, his back to the card game, sat Ten, apparently reading a book.  The Doctor recognized the immaculately cut hair, the tan overcoat.

He stood in the center of the room, not sure what to do, contemplating what manner of trap the Papal Mainframe might be setting for him.  He watched the card game, grimacing at each flash of familiar facial expression and body language.  Encounters with his past selves always brought with them a not-inconsiderable dose of mortification: how could he have dressed like that?  How could he have been so arrogant?  So buffoonish?  So conniving?  So bad-tempered?  So naïve?  It always felt like a funhouse mirror, with the worst aspects of himself reflected back at him.  Like most Time Lords, the Doctor tended to feel that his current incarnation was superior to all that had come before it, and the worst part was knowing that his future incarnations would look back at his present self with these same feelings of loathing and chagrin.

The Doctors seated around the table didn’t seem to notice the newcomer—or if they did, they were studiously ignoring him.  In their corner, Nine and Ten didn’t look up from their reading material.  The card-players all were drinking, and the Doctor smiled at the predictability of the beverages they’d chosen: white wine for One, ale for Two, cognac for Three, some type of cocktail—a margarita?—for Four, a Bloody Mary for Five (garnished with celery, naturally), port for Six, something that looked suspiciously like soda water for Seven, and claret for Eight.  Nine and Ten appeared to be sharing a pot of tea.

A door in the back swung open and in scurried a servant—a waiter?—carrying a tray of fresh drinks for the players.  The waiter was small and stooped over, wrapped in a black shroud.  When the figure got close enough, the Doctor realized somewhat to his horror that it was the Master, once more a decaying skeletal husk.  The Master circled the table, replacing glasses, his demeanor obsequious and fearful.  As he handed Four a fresh margarita, the big Time Lord’s foot lashed out, kicking the Master and knocking him to the floor.  The tray of half-empty glasses fell, smashing to pieces, spilling a fetid brew of spirits across the floor.  The eight Doctors chortled with unkind laughter.  The Master growled to himself, trying to gather up the mess, but his fleshless fingers couldn’t manage the task, and while he fumbled with the shards of glass, Three kicked him again, sending him sprawling and prompting yet more gales of laughter.

“Stop it!” the Doctor yelled, striding into the fracas.  “You know what the Time Lords did to him—you should be ashamed of yourselves!”

The laughter died down, and the eight earliest Doctors glared sullenly at their most recent incarnation.  The Doctor scooted down, and protecting his right hand with a handkerchief, cleaned up as much of the broken glass as he could before helping the Master to his feet.

“Go,” the Doctor told him quietly.  “This doesn’t concern you—just go.”

The Master’s face flashed backward through all his various incarnations, until only the child Kosechi remained.  Then he vanished.

The first eight Doctors returned to their card game.  In the corner, a chair scraped, and Ten got to his feet, folding his glasses and stowing them in an inner pocket of his jacket.  He wore the blue suit, the Doctor saw, and he walked with his hands in his pockets, smiling, head tipped at the slight angle that so many had found boyish or charming or irresistible, but which now struck the Doctor as contrived and fatuous.

“Hullo!” said Ten.  “The great hero arrives at last.”  He looked the Doctor up and down, making a disgruntled face at the tatty green coat, the braces, the bow tie.  His gaze then came to rest on the Doctor’s silvering hair.  “Getting a little long in tooth, aren’t we?”

The Doctor ignored the banter.  “What’s your game, then?” he asked.  “Bringing me face-to-face with the worst parts of myself, is that it?”

“Oh, we’re just getting warmed up,” said Ten, and behind his eyes, the Doctor could see a darkness going back into infinity—the scheming consciousness of the Papal Mainframe.  He reminded himself that whatever form the Papal Mainframe took in this dreamscape, it wasn’t real, only a projection of the Doctor’s thoughts and dreams and memories, his own inner turmoil made flesh and given a voice.

“The great Doctor,” Ten said, looking the Doctor up and down, getting the measure of him.  “I must say, this is an unexpected delight.”

“Especially considering you’ve created an entire religious order dedicated to annihilating me,” the Doctor said.  “I thought I’d drop by for a chat.  Nice work with the NASA spacesuit, by the way, but really, you should’ve found someone besides my wife to operate the thing.”

“Don’t think you can defeat us, Doctor,” Ten warned, eyes blank, chilling.  “Even Time Lords are but a speck of dust to the might of the Papal Mainframe.”

The Doctor stepped closer, peering into Ten’s eyes, trying to see more.  “Do I know you?” he said.  “Omega?  Rassilon?  The Celestial Toymaker?  I’d say the Master, but this isn’t really his style.”

Ten stepped back.  “Make no mistake: we will crush you, Doctor.”

“So, why haven’t you done it already?” the Doctor asked.  “You let me get this far.”  He spun around, examining the drinking den.  “You’re good, I’ll give you that much.  This world couldn’t be more real.  But you’re no better than the Silents, aren’t you?  You need someone else to do your dirty work for you.  You couldn’t properly kill Tremaine and his people; you had to sow fear and dissent until they ended their own lives.  Even this planet is someone else’s work.  You’re all brain and no muscle.”

“Don’t be too sure of that.”  Ten took his successor’s arm, drawing him toward the beaded curtains.  “Have a look backwards, and then tell us how powerless we are.”

(ii)

The store-room had vanished, the air clean and very warm beneath the shimmering light of two suns.  Around the Doctor waved a sea of long, red grass.  Here and there grew tall trees, their trunks black, their leaves silver.  In the distance rose the domed roofs of an extensive homestead, and beyond them, the lofty peaks of mist-swathed mountains.

“Gallifrey,” the Doctor said, his voice young, adolescent.  Not even in his most tormented dreams had it been this beautiful.  His chest tightened in a convulsive gasp.  Gallifrey, before the war, secure in its place in the cosmos, serene as a goddess, a jewel in the sky.

“Come on, you slug!” a familiar voice called, and a slim figure darted past him.  The Doctor gave pursuit, unthinking, chasing after Kosechi, racing through the red grass, which grew tall enough to all but conceal the running boys.

The game ended with the two of them tumbling together, falling into each other’s arms beneath the ochre sky.  Theta Sigma was only thirteen, but Kosechi was fifteen, his body already becoming more adult, and of late this game had begun to take a turn that Theta Sigma found both exciting and frightening.  Catching Theta Sigma’s hands in his own, Kosechi pushed his friend onto his back and began kissing him.  Theta Sigma still hadn’t decided whether he liked this or not, he only knew he was powerless to stop it.

Kosechi paused, gazing down at the younger boy.  “You’d let me do anything to you, wouldn’t you?”

Trembling, Theta Sigma nodded.

Kosechi leaned down for another kiss, flattening his body against his friend’s and holding him immobile.  Before the game could go any further, though, a man’s voice called: Kosechi’s father, who’d been expecting the two boys.

“Later,” Kosechi said, his face flushed, blue eyes dilated, almost violet in color.  He clambered to his feet, Theta Sigma following.  They stole one more prolonged kiss before brushing off their clothes and making their dutiful way to Kosechi’s parents’ home.  His father didn’t like to be kept waiting.

(iii)

The Doctor blinked.  He stood in the vacant Panopticon, staring at the rows of seats: the lower level and the gallery overhead.  The seats were all empty now, no more Time Lords, everything empty and bare.

“Nothing quite as painful as first love, is there?”  Ten emerged from the darkness.

The Doctor gave him a look.  “Like you’d understand love,” he said.  “You’re an artificial intelligence.  Sentient or not, I doubt you’ve experienced anything close to love, certainly not enough to be an expert on the subject.”

“To the contrary,” Ten smiled.  “I can enter the minds of my acolytes and live vicariously through their bodies.”

“A simulation,” the Doctor shrugged.  “Hardly the real thing—no messy consequences.”  He looked around the Panopticon.  “My former selves—that was mortification.  First love—that was grief.  Since we’re on Gallifrey, I suppose guilt is next.  This is all fairly predictable, you know.”

Ten’s face hardened.  “You’ll live to regret that flippant tongue of yours.”

(iv)

The museum was quiet, deserted, dusty.  Theta Sigma wandered among the exhibits, smiling at the old models of time-and-space machines, shaking his head, wondering that any of them had been able to leave Gallifrey and make it back in one piece.  The TARDISes all looked rather sad: Time Lords rarely bothered with this collection, preferring the newer, more efficient models.  When it came to their time machines, Time Lords didn’t look back.  Theta Sigma had never actually piloted a TARDIS; his grades in telepathy had been too low to qualify.  He’d studied time travel, of course, and had done reasonably well at the theoretical aspects, but his unwillingness to merge his mind with those of other Time Lords had prevented him from passing the practical exams.  He liked to come to this part of the museum, though, to daydream about traveling in time and space.

Today he had company, his granddaughter, now a lively four-year-old.  Theta Sigma’s son and daughter-in-law had gone to attend the induction of Gallifrey’s new president, and Theta Sigma, always bored by ceremony, has offered to look after the little girl.

“Mind you don’t knock anything over,” he said when Shushaneah came a bit too close to a display of fragile old time rotors.

“Yes, Grandfather,” she said.  Shushaneah wore the tunic and trousers of all Gallifreyan children.  She was still in the nursery pods, but in another four years, she’d be able to start her Academy training.  Theta Sigma loved her youthful exuberance and spontaneity, her honest emotional responses.  He hated the thought of her becoming a Time Lady: cool, aloof, rational.  It seemed just moments ago that her father, Theta Sigma’s son, had been so young…

Theta Sigma coughed, blinking and turning away.  Shushaneah was such a joy.  If only there was some way to keep her like this forever.  A foolish desire—Shushaneah was a Time Lady; she should be trained as one.  Theta Sigma knew full well that once she enrolled at the Academy, his contact with her would be limited.  Even his own son would regard Theta Sigma as a bad influence: sentimental, unfocused, unaccomplished, completely lacking in ambition.

“Grandfather, what’s this one?” Shushaneah demanded.

“Ah, that looks like an old Type 40,” Theta Sigma responded, crossing the exhibition hall, his robes rustling.  “In my Academy days, they used these as demonstration models in the time laboratory.”

“Do you know how it works?” Shushaneah asked, dark eyes aglow.  Apart from her eye color, she looked very much the way Theta Sigma had at the same age—small, slim, her hair dark and undisciplined.  Theta Sigma’s own hair was turning white now, which disgruntled him; he wasn’t even terribly old, barely 200, although of late he’d been cultivating an antediluvian air, mostly as a means of emotional self-preservation.

“Of course I know how it works!” Theta Sigma lied smoothly.  He didn’t want Shushaneah to regard him as a failure, as everyone else did.  Theta Sigma cringed inside, thinking of Kosechi and all the classmates who’d long ago surpassed him; of his parents, their eyes full of so much unspoken disappointment; of his mentors at the Academy, who’d held such high hopes for him.  He gazed down at Shushaneah, smiling; at least there was one person on Gallifrey who stood in awe of him.

“Show me!” Shushaneah begged, reaching up to squeeze his hand.   “Let’s go to another planet!”

“We can’t, child,” Theta Sigma said.  “These are old ships, and besides, the Curator keeps the doors locked.”

“This one’s unlocked,” Shushaneah said, pointing.

Theta Sigma stared.  He hadn’t noticed—he was sure the door to the smooth, silver pod had been closed when he’d first looked.  But Shushaneah was right; the door to the ship stood open, by perhaps a millimeter, almost imperceptible unless one looked very carefully.

“Well,” he said, with one quick glance up and down the gallery.  Nobody else was about.  He coughed.  “Well, hmm, yes, of course, let’s take a look inside.”

He pushed the door open and stepped across the threshold, Shushaneah following behind him, darting eagerly into the console room.

“Oh, Grandfather!” she exclaimed.  “It’s marvelous!”

Indeed, it was.  Theta Sigma turned this way and that, studying the soft, luminous white walls.  The machine hummed quietly, an enchanting noise—a surprise to Theta Sigma, as he’d assumed all these old machines must be powered down.  But this TARDIS was fully functional.  The console was small compared to those of the newer models, but with the same classic hexagonal design, so that six Time Lords could operate it together, joining their minds to each other’s and to the ship’s matrix.  Theta Sigma had never been able to reveal so much of his inner self to anyone, and for that reason, he hadn’t been able to pass the practical time-traveling exam.  He ventured a hand to stroke the console, gazing at the transparent time rotors.

“The most beautiful thing I’ve ever known,” he said aloud.

“Who are you talking to?” asked Shushaneah, flitting over to his side.

“Hmm?  Nobody.  Nobody, of course.”

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“Aah—well—hmm, how about a little trip to Rheniam and back before the induction ceremony’s over?”

“Oh, thank you!” Shushaneah exclaimed.

Theta Sigma circled the console, trying to recall his Academy lessons.  Without difficulty, he located the switch that closed the TARDIS doors.  He studied the navigation panel, entering the coordinates for Rheniam—at least he hoped those were the coordinates—and pulled the lever to activate the time rotor.

With a grinding noise and a long, sonic whine, the ship began to vibrate.  Theta Sigma clung to the console, both hearts racing, his mind filled with a wild excitement.  Unauthorized time travel was illegal, of course, strictly prohibited, but with everyone else preoccupied, surely no-one would notice the absence of a museum-piece TARDIS, one unremarkable, undistinguished Time Lord, and a girl too young even to have left the nursery pods.

(v)

He blinked, finding himself in the Panopticon once more.

“One trip,” he said out loud.  “Just that one little adventure.  I was always going to come back.  Put the ship in the museum, bring Susan home to her parents.”

“But you didn’t,” said Ten, sprawled in an empty seat, arms and legs akimbo.  “You barely knew how to pilot the thing.”

The Doctor shrugged.  After all these centuries, he still couldn’t pilot the TARDIS very well, but that was part of the thrill of his life: improvisation, never quite knowing exactly when or where he was going to go next.

That first tentative adventure had led to another trip, and then another.  Theta Sigma had learned, by degrees, to merge his mind with the ship’s matrix.  While he didn’t always go where he planned, or even where he wanted, he always seemed to land where he was needed—and it had taken him centuries, literally, to realize the ship was exercising her own will, taking him places where he’d do the most good—although he’d never set out to be any kind of hero.  He’d only wanted to escape the never-ending drone of boredom on Gallifrey—to see new things, to observe life in its infinite multitude of forms.

Early in his travels, he and Shushaneah had found themselves on Earth, the primary cradle of a species so proliferative and successful that it had given its name to an entire phenotype: humanoid.  Theta Sigma had been immediately captivated by humanity: enthralled and fascinated and infuriated, all at the same time.  Earth had become his second home, and it had been in Edwardian England that he’d adopted the title, “Doctor,” an alias at once anonymous and distinguished.  He learned that he needed only to introduce himself by this title and people would automatically respect him—or at the very least, they’d give him a moment of their attention.  By calling himself the Doctor, he caused people to assume he held some official status, and by the time they thought to question his credentials, he’d either earned their trust or scarpered.

He’d never intended to use the moniker “Doctor” beyond that sojourn on Earth.  But on his very next adventure, the title had popped out of his mouth without a second thought, and Theta Sigma had discovered, somewhat to his surprise, that it was an appellation he enjoyed.  Many Time Lords adopted a title of distinction, after all, and Theta Sigma found that “Doctor” suited him, as much as the elegant black suit, cloak, and hat he’d taken to wearing.  The only trace of his Time Lord identity was his ostentatious amethyst Prydon Academy ring, which he didn’t give up wearing until after his first regeneration, when it had no longer fit any of his fingers.

Shushaneah, too, had become changed, her Gallifreyan tunic and trousers exchanged for twentieth century Earth garb.  She never questioned why they didn’t return home, and over time, the Doctor had concocted a plausible cover story: he and Shushaneah, he would tell people, were exiles, cut off from their own planet and people.  Shushaneah grew up in the TARDIS, and between adventures, the Doctor would give her haphazard Academy lessons, but as they traveled it soon became clear that the universe itself was Shushaneah’s classroom.  During their stay in Edwardian England, the Doctor had transposed her Gallifreyan name to Suzanna, and by the time they returned to Earth in the mid-twentieth century, Suzanna had been shortened to Susan.  The Doctor had agreed to let her enroll at the Coal Hill School because she’d wanted to experience ordinary Earth education, and the Doctor had thought it would be a good way to learn more about the culture of this time period.

And then those two inquisitive teachers, Ian and Barbara, had pushed their way into the ship, the first humans to set foot inside the TARDIS.  Angered by this intrusion, the Doctor had materialized with the pair on board.  And that had been a beginning of another sort, one that had changed the Doctor irrevocably—not merely observing other species, but taking them along with him, showing them the wonders and perils of time and space.  If he’d fancied himself a teacher, a wise professor, then the learning had been reciprocal: his friends had taught him, too, the value of kindness and courage and yes, even humility.  Everything that was good and noble and selfless about him, he knew he had his friends to thank for.  His essential nature, he wasn’t too ashamed to admit, was Gallifreyan—cold, unfeeling, selfish, aloof, rational to a fault.  It was thanks to his friends, his human companions, that he’d developed any degree of empathy whatsoever.

Ten swung his long legs around, hopping to his feet.  “And what about Susan?” he asked, bringing the Doctor back to the present.  “Just dumped off on twenty-second century Earth?  You never did go back for her.”

“I didn’t want her to grow up on Gallifrey,” the Doctor said.  “She’d have become as corrupt as the rest of that lot.  I wanted her to be happy.  She’d met a young man she loved.  I wanted her to experience that, to not be paired off in an arranged marriage, like the rest of us.”

“Of course she was happy,” Ten scoffed.  “Happy until she outlived her husband, their children, even their grandchildren.  Happy until generations of people she loved died around her.”

“She left Earth,” the Doctor said.  “I saw her again, on Gallifrey.”  How that memory hurt.  “At Romana’s induction as president.”

“She returned to Gallifrey because Romana had gone to Earth—looking for you, not incidentally—and found Susan there, three centuries after you’d left her.”

The Doctor said, “She didn’t resent me for it, if that’s what you’re hinting around at.  If she regretted anything about her life, she kept it to herself.”

“Romana encouraged her to regenerate into a child’s body again, so she could train at the Academy, a chance you denied her,” Ten said.

“Susan made her own decision,” the Doctor said.  “Nobody forced her.”

“And she died on Gallifrey when you destroyed the planet.  You murdered her, Doctor.  Along with your parents, your son, and the wife you abandoned when you went renegade, all those centuries ago.”

“Old news,” the Doctor said.  “You really think you can flog me about that any more than I’ve already flogged myself?”  He stepped forward, drilling a forefinger into Ten’s sternum.  “I had two choices: destroy my own people, or let them destroy all of reality, everywhere, at every point in history.  A choice I’m sure a cheap hologram like you wouldn’t lose a night’s sleep over.”

Ten glared at him, eyes full of anger, the Papal Mainframe frustrated by its inability to break the Doctor with guilt.  Then he smiled, crafty once more, and touched the Doctor’s arm.

(vi)

The security guards surrounded him the moment the Doctor set foot outside the TARDIS.

“Oh, heavens, aren’t we past this yet?” he asked.

A cool, amused voice ordered, “Boys, you can stand down.”

From an inner room, a woman emerged: very tall, slender as a wand, her hair a cascading mass of dark auburn.  Her skin was milky white, her eyes deep blue.  Her beauty stunned the Doctor, and he stood staring, open-mouthed, until she smiled and said, “Hello, Doctor.”

“Romana,” he answered, making a short bow.  “Your regeneration suits you.”

“As does yours,” she responded.  She said to the guards, “Please leave us.”

The commander said, “Lady Romana, this man is a wanted—”

“The Doctor’s been pardoned of all his misdemeanors,” Romana said.  “Or didn’t you check your news feeds?”  She clucked her tongue.  “Now, go.”

Palpably disgruntled, the octet of guards swept out of the room.

Romana held out a slim hand.  “Doctor,” she said.  “You received the invitation.  I suppose I should consider myself flattered, that you’d return to Gallifrey for my induction.”

“This is a visit,” the Doctor said.  “I’m not staying.”

“Of course you’re not.”  Her laughter rippled out like a ribbon of cool water, enchanting him.  She slipped a long arm through his, steering him down a curving hallway.  Romana wore a simple robe, the garment favored by Time Ladies when they weren’t wearing ceremonial garb.  The Doctor couldn’t help noticing how the white silk draped over Romana’s shapely limbs when she moved.  He realized, much to his disgruntlement, that in this form, she topped him by three or four inches.  When they’d last traveled together, he’d been taller than her by a foot.

“How did you get out of E-Space?” he asked, trying to distract himself.

“Oh, I built my own TARDIS,” she said.  “The Tharils helped me.”

“And K-9?”

“I left him with Lazlo’s great-grandson,” Romana said.  “The Tharils needed a robot more than I did, once I had an operational TARDIS.”

“How long were you in E-Space?” asked the Doctor.

“Centuries,” Romana said.  “I helped rebuild the Tharil society—got it as stable as it’s possible to get any society—and found a weak point in the dimensional wall.  I almost destroyed my new TARDIS blasting through, but—”

“Why Gallifrey?” the Doctor asked.  “With all of time and space at your disposal?  I thought you never wanted to come back.”

Her expression wry, Romana said, “I was homesick, Doctor.  It can happen to the best of us.  When I was in E-Space, I missed Gallifrey so much… more and more, with each passing year.”  Her arm tightened inside his.  “I missed you.”

Voice a bit hoarse, the Doctor said, “I missed you as well.”

“I gave up looking for you,” Romana said, activating a switch in the wall.  They stepped into a lift.  Brisk and practical once more, she continued, “Everywhere I went, it seemed you’d just left, so I collected Shushanaeh and came home.”

Both the Doctor’s hearts lurched.  “Susan’s here?”

“Oh, yes,” Romana said.  “A student in Prydon Academy, at last.”

The Doctor sighed.  “All that time I spent trying to keep her away from Time Lord society, and you put her right back into the assembly line.”

“Don’t worry,” Romana smiled.  “Shushanaeh won’t ever become an unfeeling robot—you had far too much influence over her, not to mention all her years living among humans on Earth.  But it’s high time she was trained.  Even you can’t deny her that, Doctor.  It’s her birthright.”

The Doctor squeezed Romana’s hand.  “Look after her, would you?”

“Of course,” Romana said.  “She’s hardly neglected—your father was especially pleased to see her come home.  Shushanaeh stays with him and your mother during the Academy holidays.”

“My parents?”  The Doctor’s hearts again gave an uncomfortable thud.  “How are they?”

“They’re well,” said Romana.  “But they miss you.  I’d pay them a visit, if I were you.”

The Doctor dragged his feet.  “I suppose,” he grumbled.

“Indeed,” Romana smiled.  “Really—it’s been centuries, Doctor.  The Daleks see more of you than your own parents.”

“All right, all right,” the Doctor said.  The doors to the lift swooshed open, and he glanced around.  “Top floor,” he said.  “The president’s apartments?”

“I’ve had them remodeled,” Romana said.  “It was about ten centuries overdue.  What do you think?”

From this vantage point, in a high tower overlooking the Citadel, one could see the entire city, secure beneath its glass dome, tinted now to ward off the scorching summer heat from Gallifrey’s two suns.  The tint would fade after the suns set, allowing one to see the other stars in the constellation of Kasterborous.

The Doctor circled the viewing platform, not hurrying.  As much as he hated the cold arrogance of the Time Lords, he loved Gallifrey, loved its natural splendor.  The windows here extended from ceiling to floor, and the panorama took his breath away.

“Remarkable,” he said after they’d made the full circuit.  Around the inner walls were arrayed pieces of artwork that Romana had collected from all over time and space.  The Doctor pointed to one with a scolding finger.

“That’s a Vermeer— _The Concert_ ,” he said.  “You stole that?”

“Borrowed it,” Romana smiled.  “Well, liberated it, actually.  It looks better on my wall than it did on Whitey Bulger’s.”

“You’re shameless,” the Doctor laughed.

She squeezed his hand again.  “I learned that from you.”  Romana paused before a doorway and pressed a button set into the control panel.  “Come see the rest.”

An inner corridor led to a courtyard, a hidden garden filled with trees and flowers.  Ferns and irises grew along the banks of an artificial brook that wound its musical way through the grove.  The Doctor walked the paths, still arm-in-arm with Romana, utterly bewitched, inhaling the scents of earth and flowers and the tangy herbs planted in beds.

“Remarkable,” he said at last, keeping his voice low to avoid breaking the spell.  “I’ll bet old Borusa didn’t plant this.”

“No, the outgoing president had it filled with books—he’s a history enthusiast, and I swear he had every volume of the Ancient Chronicles—he must be an insomniac.  This is mine.  I wanted a sanctuary, a place of tranquility.”

The Doctor glanced up at the sky, then around the grove again.  “You modeled this on the TARDIS cloisters,” he said.

“You’re slipping,” Romana smiled, her fingertips tracing along the inside of his wrist.  “It’s taken you, what, twenty minutes to realize that?”

Indeed it had.  The Doctor realized he was distracted—by Romana, by her unexpected new beauty, by the sheer joy of seeing her once again.

“I’ve missed you,” he said.  “So much.  I’ve never stopped thinking about you.”  He reached out a tentative hand, caressing a strand of her glossy hair.

“After brunette and blonde, I decided to go ginger this time,” Romana responded.  Her fingers strayed up to the Doctor’s habitually untidy hair, dark threaded with silver, tracing his prominent cowlick.  “You’ve got a bit of a red patina there yourself, if my eyes aren’t deceiving me,” she said.

“It was quite by accident,” he said.  “Got caught in the crossfire of gang warfare in San Francisco.”  His nose wrinkled.  “Not pleasant, especially when they tried to defibrillate me in hospital.  I didn’t have time to worry about cosmetics.”

Romana said, “I’m sorry I wasn’t there to help.”

Their faces were very close—the top of his head at the level of Romana’s nose—and he took advantage of the moment to stretch up for a kiss.

“You devil,” she smiled.  “You haven’t changed that much.”

“Nor you.”

Romana took his hand, leading him from the garden to an inner room of her apartments.  A row of small windows looked out onto the viewing platform.  This was an anteroom, where Romana would receive visitors and conduct official business.  From there, she led the Doctor deeper inside the suite.

Gallifreyan homes, large or small, urban or rural, tended to be built around the same general scheme.  Married couples most always had separate rooms for sleeping, with a room connecting the two for sexual activity.  While the sleeping rooms might sometimes have one small window, the rooms designated for sex were always the most internal rooms of the home, completely windowless, only accessible from the two sleeping rooms.

Many of the Doctor’s companions, if they’d given any thought to the matter at all, had assumed him either celibate or otherwise disinterested in sex.  Time Lords weren’t prudish, but they tended on the whole to be very private when it came to amorous matters.  Their marriages were arranged, but because Time Lords lived for so long, they took lovers as a matter of course; fidelity to one’s spouse wasn’t required, either by custom or by law.  Since they could change gender when they regenerated, many Time Lords had no real sexual preference.  The Doctor had had no wish—yet, anyway—to experience life in a woman’s body.  On the other hand, if he ever could turn out looking like Romana, he might be tempted to give it a try.

Smiling, she led him to the innermost room, closing the door behind them and setting the lock.

“All right?” she inquired.

The Doctor nodded, suddenly nervous, dumbstruck, and shy.

The lighting in here was very soft and diffuse, the walls painted a rich purple.  Underfoot, the carpet was plush and dove gray.  The large bed had been draped with fabric of the same colors, accented with pillows and cushions in deep green.  One end of the bed was raised, creating a platform.

Romana turned her back to the Doctor, and he enfolded her in his arms, kissing her hair and the back of her neck, his hands roaming up and down her body, learning her new contours.  Romana arched into him, her noises of pleasure telling him he remembered well what she enjoyed.

They drew apart long enough to disrobe, the Doctor’s garments falling away one by one.  He unfastened the hooks on the back of Romana’s gown, and the white silk fluttered to the floor, joining the Doctor’s clothes.  Beneath the robe, Romana was scandalously naked.  She laughed at the Doctor’s expression, leading him by the hand to the bed.  They nuzzled and kissed and caressed each other, and finally, Romana ran her knuckles under the Doctor’s cheekbones, pressing down firmly.  He did the same for her, trembling slightly.

A moment later, the scent of their musk filled the air around them, and the familiar, instantaneous arousal followed.  Romana clambered up to her knees, leaning against the raised platform.  The Doctor mounted her from behind and took her without hesitation.  She moaned softly, pushing back against him, and they moved together, the lost centuries but the blink of an eye.  _Yesterday—it might have been yesterday_ —and that was the last coherent thought to cross the Doctor’s mind.

(vii)

The musk took a few hours to wear off, and under its spell, they coupled again and again.  Hunger followed—Romana had anticipated this need as well, providing them with a sensuous feast of Gallifreyan delicacies.  And wine—from the planet’s best vineyards, centuries old, the flavors distinct, mellow and clear, a symphony of pleasure on the tongue.

“Has there been anyone else?” asked Romana, catching the Doctor off guard.

“Why?” he asked.  “Would you be jealous if I said yes?”

Romana laughed low in her throat, running her long fingers over his chest.  “Hardly,” she said.  “I’m just curious.  You acted like it had been a while.”

“No,” he said.  “There’s been no one since you.”

She clicked her tongue.  “I’m sorry,” she said.  “You shouldn’t have to be alone.”

“Who says I’ve been alone?” he huffed.  “I’ve had loads of friends traveling with me.”

“That’s not what I meant,” she chided.

“There wasn’t anyone who could hold a candle to you,” the Doctor said.

“No humans?” asked Romana.

The Doctor went rigid all over.  “No,” he said, unable to stop an involuntary flinch of distaste.  “What makes you ever think I’d—no, absolutely not.  Humans are—they’re children, Romana.  It wouldn’t be right.”

“I just wondered how much moral conditioning you’ve been able to overcome.”

“Some Time Lord strictures are in place for a good reason,” the Doctor said.  He swallowed some wine.  “Besides, a hybrid species?  We have no idea how dangerous that could be.”  He had to admit, he’d been very fond of several human friends, but he’d never let things progress beyond warm affection; one snog with Grace Holloway was as far as he’d been willing to go.  “That’s not why I want people to travel with me,” he heard himself saying.  “I’d never want anyone to think I’d invited them along in exchange for—for—favors.”

“Hmm.  That’s quite noble of you,” Romana said.  “Not everyone would be so scrupulous.”

Stricken by a sudden flash of insight, the Doctor said, “You—did you—?”  He couldn’t finish the sentence.

Romana gave him a long, level stare.  “Would it make a difference?” she asked.

“In how I feel about you?”

“In what you think of me.”

The Doctor tried to repress a swell of revulsion and the urge to be judgmental.  “Does anyone else know?”

“Anyone on Gallifrey, you mean?  No.”

“You’d best keep it that way,” the Doctor said.  “It would be enough to discredit your candidacy.”

“Anyone who would know is in E-Space,” Romana said.  “Or dead.”

“Was it—?” the Doctor said.  “Not—a Tharil?”

“Lazlo’s son,” Romana said.  “I know you disapprove, Doctor.  You’re too transparent.”

“Why are you telling me this?” the Doctor asked.  “Not a need to confess, surely?”

“Perhaps I’d feel less… troubled about it, if I knew you’d had a similar experience.”

“Hoping to dilute the guilt a bit?” the Doctor asked.

“I don’t feel guilty!” Romana flared.  “I loved him!  He was—”  She struggled for words.

In a flash of understanding, the Doctor said, “He died?”

She nodded mutely, eyes brimming.  “He lived to be over two hundred, but that’s nothing to us.  I knew it would happen, but still, nothing prepares you for that pain—that horrible sense of emptiness.”

Misgivings forgotten, the Doctor drew her into his arms.  “I’m so sorry, Romana.”  He stroked her long hair, then asked, “Is that why you left E-Space?”

She nodded.  “Yes—it became too unbearable—to go alone to the places I’d been with him—it didn’t seem right without him there.”

“Yes—yes, I know.”  The Doctor closed his eyes, remembering those first days after Romana had left the TARDIS, when nothing had seemed to matter very much.  Regeneration had come almost as a relief—in his new body, his desire for Romana had been muted, less acute, a more diffuse melancholy.

“Is that why you looked for me?” the Doctor asked.  “Came back here?”

“It was silly—I wanted to see someone who loved me—and go somewhere _he_ could never have gone.  I even regenerated to try to ease the pain.”

“Well, there’s a pair of us,” the Doctor murmured.  “Did it work?”

Romana kissed him.  “It wasn’t a complete cure, but it helped.”  After another kiss, she said, “And so does this.”  She drew him down to the cushions and their bodies slid together.

“The cure for everything?” the Doctor teased.

Romana agreed, “Close enough.”

(viii)

The robes—he’d forgotten how voluminous they were, the scarlet and orange silk of Prydon Academy.  The helmet—tight-fitting on the head—too close, too uncomfortable, and his hair stuck out ridiculously beneath it.  And the heavy scapular, worst of all—an insistent weight on the shoulders, forcing one to adopt that rigid, unyielding Time Lord posture.  It had taken years for the Doctor finally to relax his stance, but even now, under duress, his head would go up, shoulders back, spine ramrod straight, as if drawing on the power and authority of his species.

The robes weren’t his—Romana had loaned him a set—the Doctor’s last set of regalia was buried in a trunk inside the TARDIS, the fabric disintegrated.  Twitching, he waited among the other Prydonians, none of whom he recognized.  They all knew him, of course, and they kept a distasteful distance from the notorious renegade, stealing covert, scornful glares from the corners of their eyes.

The sea of red robes parted slightly, and a Time Lord, tall even by the standards of their people, came forward, a beautiful Time Lady at his side.  The Doctor gawked.  He would know this man anywhere—his own father.  Now he could see where the looks of his fourth incarnation had come from.  The protuberant dark blue eyes, the prominent nose, the curly hair—white now, but it had been brown when the Doctor had seen him last.

“Lord Theta Sigma,” said Tanicus, his tone somber, offering a hand.  Time Lords never embraced one another in public—it was considered gauche in the extreme, overemotional, grotesque.  Tanicus even sounded the same, his voice deep and authoritative.

“Father,” said the Doctor with a formal half-bow, hating that his manners reverted to Gallifreyan so quickly.  He tried not to let it bother him that his father addressed him as “Lord.”  “And Mother.”  He reached out to clasp hands with Lady Azadeh.  He could see in her coloring the complexion of his fifth and sixth incarnations—fair, like peaches or apricots.  Her hair had once been fine and gold, but now was pure white.  “How are you both?”

“Well,” replied Tanicus.  “And yourself?”

“Very well,” the Doctor said.  “Romana told me—”

“ _Lady_ Romanadvoratrelundar,” his mother corrected him.

The Doctor tried not to flush.  Time Lords prefixed their names with Lord or Lady—only family members or lovers would use the familiar form, and even then, not in public.

“I’ve been away too long,” the Doctor said, covering his _faux pas_ as smoothly as possible.  “ _Lady_ Romana told me Susan’s been staying with you on her holidays.”

“Her parents are conducting field research in Ulovspinnel,” said Tanicus, referring to a small continent near Gallifrey’s north pole.  “They asked us to look after Shushanaeh.”

The thought of his son caused the Doctor no small amount of pain.  From young adulthood, Gaderian had wanted very little to do with his embarrassing father; now, of course, he hated the Doctor for kidnapping Susan and leaving her on Earth among humans for so long.

Lady Azadeh said, “Will you visit with him while you’re home?”

“If he’ll even speak to me,” the Doctor said.  He supposed they’d next be admonishing him to go patch things up with his wife.

“You should at least try,” his mother chided.

The Doctor made a noncommittal grunting noise.  He’d come home for Romana’s induction, not to waste time groveling for the approval of people who loathed the very sight of him, who considered him no better than the Master or the Rani or any of Gallifrey’s other criminals.  Tanicus and Azadeh at least maintained a modicum of sympathy—they themselves were iconoclasts of sorts, dwelling outside mainstream Time Lord society in the splendid isolation of their mountainside home.  This was probably their first trip to the Citadel in decades; the Doctor suspected Romana had alerted them to their wayward son’s arrival.

From deep within the Panopticon, a series of chimes sounded.  The Prydonians grew quiet and organized themselves into serried ranks.  The procession was about to begin.

(xiv)

The children sat around tables in the common area.  A hum of industry and purpose hovered over the small figures, who worked in pairs and groups, quizzing each other.  These were primary-level students, but the collars and cuffs of their tunics identified them as a more advanced cohort—Primary Two.  In a few years, they would progress to Primary Three, and from there to the intermediate level.  They would move through Secondary in three similar stages, and then to Tertiary.  After completing the Tertiary Three exams, they’d earn the title Tertiary Oblate and spend the next five years in one intense area of specialization.  When this study was satisfactorily completed, the young scholars would be titled Time Lord Novice, and after passing the final battery of theoretical and practical exams, would be awarded the coveted rank of Time Lord.  The entire grueling process could take a total of four or five decades.

Today, the students were memorizing the properties of all the stars, planets, moons, and asteroids that comprised the vast Ophichus Supercluster.  The Doctor could call that information to mind without effort—a skill these youngsters would one day acquire, the ability to store information deep in the mind and recall it at will.

He scanned the tables, allowing his telepathic sense to flow out.  _There_.  At the far table, clearly leading the study session, sat a girl who appeared to the naïve eye about eleven years old.  She was slim, elfin, her face long and almost pointed, framed with waves of red-gold hair.  Her eyes were wide and aquamarine in color, and they grew even wider when she looked up, startled by the telepathic nudge, and saw the Doctor.  Excusing herself to her companions, she stood, rising to her feet with a smooth, fluid movement.

The Doctor turned and left the common room, preferring to have this reunion in private.  The girl followed him to an unoccupied lecture hall.  The low seats were arranged in a circle, so that students could have an unobstructed view of their tutors.  From a computer set into the floor, images of everything from solar systems to complex equations to DNA molecules could be projected in three dimensions.  The Doctor felt an unexpected pang of nostalgia for his student days, time spent in classrooms very like this one, listening to the drone of his professors, the eager replies of his classmates.  He’d wondered so often how they could be so ambitious when he could barely stay awake during lecture.

“Grandfather?”

The sound of her voice—bright and lovely, like a silver bell—prompted the Doctor to spin about.  She took in the ceremonial regalia and burst out laughing.

With a shout of happiness, the Doctor swept her into his arms.  He lifted her off her feet and swung her about.

“Susan!” he laughed.

“Oh, Grandfather, it’s so good to see you again!  Are you coming home, too?”

The question touched him with its absurd innocence.  Blinking and clearing his throat, the Doctor said, “No.  I’m sorry, child.  But I’ll visit more often, I promise.”  He set his granddaughter on her feet.

Susan gazed up at him, her expression of adoration completely undiminished.  “No, you won’t.”  She was teasing, but he could sense the sadness behind her words.

He gently disentangled himself from her arms and removed the heavy scapular, setting it down with a grimace.  The helmet followed.  “There,” he sighed.  “Much better.”

“You only came back for Lady Romana’s induction?” asked Susan.

“Yes,” the Doctor said.  “You know me too well, Susan.  I’ve never been happy here.”  They sat on the lecturer’s desk, an impertinence—students were prohibited from sitting anywhere but their own seats.  Susan, with glee, drew up her feet and sat cross-legged.  “As soon as the festivities are over, I’ll be off again.”  He reached out and brushed an affectionate finger down the bridge of her perfect nose, thrilled that she’d turned out such a beauty—Romana’s doing, no doubt.  “But enough about an old man—how are you liking the Academy?”

“It’s all right,” she said.  “Sometimes fun, sometimes interesting, sometimes dull.  The other students are so _young_ , Grandfather.  I’ve had great-grandchildren, and most of the students seem like they’ve barely left the nursery pods.”  Her wonderful laughter pealed out.  “I’ve been to some of the planets we’re studying, and I can tell them stories—the Daleks and the Sensorites and the Voord.  The professors get so cross when I talk about you, Grandfather.”

“I would imagine so,” the Doctor said dryly.  “I’m hardly anyone’s idea of a model Time Lord.”

“But the children love the stories about you,” Susan confided.

“And then they’ll become indoctrinated and start hating me,” the Doctor said.

“They’re only jealous,” Susan told him.  “The other Time Lords all resent you for your freedom.”

“Susan—ah, how did you and David, erm, how did you have children?” the Doctor asked awkwardly.  “It’s not possible—Gallifreyans and humans—the genetics—completely incompatible—”

Susan stared at him, then burst again into merry laughter.  “Silly Grandfather!  We adopted children, of course.  There were so many orphans after the Daleks invaded Earth.  David and I adopted four.”

The Doctor exhaled, wondering how he could not have deduced something so obvious.  “Oh,” he said.  “Oh—yes, I see.”  He took Susan’s hand.  “I’m so sorry I never went back to visit you.”

“It’s all right,” she said.  “I was happy on Earth—David and I had such a wonderful life together.”

“It was selfish of me,” the Doctor said.  “I wasn’t thinking of how you would outlive him.”

“I wouldn’t trade it for anything,” Susan told him.  “No matter how sad I was when he died.”  Her voice trembled.  “You were right to make me leave the TARDIS—I never would have left you of my own volition.”

“I wanted you to be happy,” he said, “and not spend the rest of your life trailing about after a daft old man.”  He glanced around the classroom and sighed.  “I wanted to spare you all this.”  He lowered his voice.  “Time Lords are so corrupt, Susan.  Maybe things will change now that Romana’s president, but centuries of unlimited power have rotted our species.  Be very careful who you trust, who you confide in.  Time Lords are as back-stabbing a lot as you’ll ever meet.”

She nodded.  It was uncanny that someone who appeared so childish could also appear so wise.  The Doctor had to remind himself that Susan wasn’t some naïve girl; she was over three hundred years old—a full century older than he had been when he’d first left Gallifrey.

“I’ll take care, Grandfather,” she promised him.

They heard a voice outside the classroom, a young man announcing that the study session was coming to an end.

“That’s Lord Prasutagus,” said Susan.  “He’s the Associate Provost for the primary students.  I’d better leave—we have a two-hour tutorial before dinner.”

“No holiday for the president’s induction?” the Doctor joked, swinging down off the lecturer’s desk and lifting Susan by the waist, placing her on her feet.

“We’re at liberty tonight after dinner,” said Susan.  “We’re excused from evening study period.”

“So hedonistic,” the Doctor mocked, making an exaggerated expression of disapproval.  “Next thing you know, the student body will be up in arms, demanding a more colorful tunic.”

Susan gave him a little jab in the ribs with her elbow.  “Don’t be impertinent, Grandfather.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he smiled, scooping up his borrowed helmet and scapular.  “I’ll look in on you again when you’re Lady Shushanaeh, and you have to wear one of these wretched things.”

“I’ll grow my own TARDIS and come find _you_ ,” Susan promised, hugging him.  “We’ll have adventures again, and I’ll help you upgrade your old Type 40.”

He blinked away more ridiculous tears.  “I’m looking forward to it.”  He could hear Lord Prasutagus rounding up the stragglers, so he said, “Go on now, before you get into as much trouble as me.”

Giggling, Susan hurried from the room.

(x)

“Oh, my,” said Ten.  “Are those tears I see?”

The Doctor dabbed at his wet face.  “If the alternative is to be an unfeeling machine like you, I’ll take my tears, gladly.”  They were back in the empty Panopticon once more.  How different it had looked at Romana’s induction ceremony—full of light and music and colorfully-robed Time Lords.  The Doctor had been foolish enough to believe the planet might enter a new era of enlightenment with Romana at the head of the High Council.  Instead, Gallifrey had only been plunged into a futile, unwinnable war, and then, the ultimate darkness of oblivion.

“Two people you loved more than anything,” Ten said.  “Both dead by your own hand.”

“You haven’t done your homework,” the Doctor said.  “Susan and Romana were both murdered by Daleks.  If you were as good as you think you are, you’d have plumbed that little nugget from my memory.”

“You failed to save them,” said Ten.

“That’s not the same thing,” the Doctor countered.  “Susan died trying to protect the children in the Academy.”  This knowledge had provided the Doctor’s only source of solace, that Susan had died fighting.  But even now, the deaths of the children in the Academy haunted the Doctor more than any of the other atrocities of the Time War.  How ruthless and brilliant of the Daleks, to strike down the very future of Time Lord society.  He hated those evil things, hated them with a ferocity that still burned like a supernova at the very core of his being.

He was grateful, though, for that last trip home—the most enjoyable visit to Gallifrey since he’d gone renegade.  He’d spent time with Susan, he’d made a nostalgic trip to his childhood home and visited his parents in privacy, and he’d passed several long, languid days in Romana’s company in the Citadel.  When he’d left the planet at last, he’d assured her that he would in fact return again.  Now that he was pardoned of his crimes, he could come and go on Gallifrey as he pleased, and he promised Susan as well that he would come home periodically to look in on her.  He’d left the planet feeling happy and at peace.  But the next time Romana had summoned him home, it had been a frantic plea for help—a massive-scale war had broken out, and Gallifrey had been under siege by a Dalek battle fleet.

“No,” said the Doctor, “no, not again—”  But it was too late; Ten smiled an evil, gloating smile, and the Doctor’s mind spun into darkness once more.

(xi)

The heat of battle gave no time to think or reflect or mourn the dead.  The Doctor was pinned, trapped by the same sextet of Daleks that had murdered Romana.  Her body lay in the corridor outside the niche where he hid.  Rage boiled inside the Doctor, but he forced himself to remain calm.  He would not allow those monsters to defile her body.

He glanced all around, wild eyes darting from side to side.  _There_ —a tiny hatch in the wall.  The Doctor opened it with his sonic screwdriver and detached a pair of reserve conduits, devices that stored and transmitted power from the Eye of Harmony up through the Citadel.  Benign things, but with a bit of tweaking—

He shot out of his hiding spot and across the intersection of two corridors, dodging electric blasts from the Daleks, weaving back and forth to draw their fire.  He had to keep them away from Romana’s body.  His speed and agility, not to mention his intimate knowledge of the layout of the Citadel, bought him critical moments, and he reached the first-floor atrium with only his long coat scorched.  The power had been cut, but using his sonic screwdriver and some of the reserve energy stored in one conduit, he was able to get the lift working.  He opened and closed the doors, sending the empty lift up to the fifteenth floor.  He knew the Daleks would not miss that tell-tale thump.  Faster than lightning, he threw himself behind a nearby collection of potted ornamental topiary.

The six Daleks rolled silently into the atrium.  “The Doc-tor has es-caped in the lift,” the leader droned, placing its black suction cup against the control panel.  “You two will stay and guard the ap-proach.  He must be found and ex-term-in-a-ted.”

The other two Daleks chorused, “I o-bey.”

When the doors to the lift opened, the first four Daleks rolled inside and the doors closed.  The Doctor waited until the lift began rising, then he aimed the sonic screwdriver at a wall opposite the two Dalek sentries, causing a mounted blown-glass sculpture to shatter with a loud explosion.  As he expected, their eyestalks swiveled around to the source of the noise.  The Doctor rolled one of the energy conduits along the floor, then flung himself onto his belly, covering his head with both hands.  The Daleks whipped around, instinctively firing at the small white canister.

With a deafening blast, the conduit, supercharged from the twin energy blasts, exploded, blowing the Daleks’ casings wide open.  In an instant, the Doctor was on top of the nearest one, ripping its blaster out of the metal shell.  The two mutant Kaleds were alive but wounded, naked and exposed.  The Doctor turned the energy blaster on first one, then the second, splattering scorched pieces of fleshy tentacles all over the atrium.

He turned then to the lift: still ascending.  The Doctor used the sonic screwdriver to stop the lift, jamming it in place between the thirteenth and fourteenth floors, and employing all his strength, he forced open the lift doors.  He tossed the second conduit into the base of the shaft, aimed the Dalek’s blaster and fired, then threw himself out of harm’s way, letting the titanium-alloy doors snap shut.

The elevator shaft channeled the force of the blast upward, and a moment later came the sound of something large and heavy hurtling down the shaft and smashing.  The Doctor waited a moment, then re-opened the doors.

The three surviving mutants were trying desperately to escape the scorched wreckage of their casings.  One had been blinded.  “Doc-tor… Doc-tor,” another one grated—even in debilitating pain, still trying to destroy its most hated enemy.

“Look at you lot,” the Doctor said, his laughter harsh, even to his own ears.  “Without your little metal tanks, you’re just soft-bodied mollusks, aren’t you?”  A tentacle flailed out at him.  Nimbly side-stepping its reach, the Doctor said, “I’d take a moment to savor the irony of killing you with your own weapon, but you haven’t left me much time.  But know this, Daleks: I will cross all of time and space and wipe every last one of you from existence.”  With that, he pointed the blaster into the mass of tentacles and fired the weapon until the air around him reeked with the stench of burning flesh.

(xii)

Romana’s body lay where it had fallen.  She’d taken a blast directly to both hearts; there would be no regeneration, no miracle, no resurrection.  She already was growing cold, though the core of her body retained a tantalizing warmth.  The Doctor lifted her into his arms and staggered toward the president’s private lift, which operated on an isolated power grid, fed by solar panels on the roof of the tower.  Romana had taught the Doctor the telepathic passkey that would open the doors, and he used it now, slipping inside and pressing the control panel for the topmost floor.

The lift doors opened to the penthouse, remarkably undamaged, untouched by the savage war that had engulfed the planet.  Outside the Citadel, the meadows and forests of Gallifrey burned.  Dalek battleships lay in smoking, broken hulks where they had landed, shot down by Gallifreyan defense forces.  The Doctor ignored the carnage, turning into the president’s apartments, carrying Romana to the replica of the TARDIS cloisters.  He’d come back later, if he survived, if there was time, and properly burn her body, but for now, he wanted her hidden where the Daleks could not desecrate what was left of her.

He lay her down on a bed of moss, listening to the forlorn trickle of water through the garden.  As he folded her arms across her breast, the sleeve of her robe fell back a bit, exposing the inside of her left arm.  On the smooth white skin she’d tattooed a mark in black ink: two letters, one atop the other, like a logo of some sort.  But they weren’t the circular characters of the Gallifreyan alphabet.  They were from Earth, letters from the Latin alphabet: an _I_ , sitting atop a letter _M_.

Stunned, the Doctor just knelt there, staring at the mark.  Romana would not have put those letters there, made them a permanent part of her being, without good reason.  That the letters were from Earth told the Doctor this was some kind of message for him.  He switched the two letters back and forth, wondering what they meant.  _I am?  Am I?_   Were they an acronym, like UNIT?  Did the _I_ stand for _intelligence_ or _international_ , the _M_ for _military_?

No, that was ridiculous—Romana was far more subtle than that.  The Doctor forced himself to study her arm again, noticing not the letters, but their shape—their _font_ , as Earth typesetters might have said.  The lettering looked archaic, almost as if it had been done by hand.  The Doctor realized he’d seen that handwriting before—those very same letters—a symbol, an identification mark—but where?

With a yelp of realization, he sprang up to his feet, regarding Romana’s dead, peaceful face, framed by waves of crimson hair.   “You genius,” he breathed, sprinting from the garden and out to the observation platform.  There—on the wall—the painting of _The Concert_.  The mark on Romana’s arm was not two letters but three: the _I_ sat in the middle of a _V_ formed by the two peaks of the letter _M_ , creating a monogram: _IVM_.

“Only it’s not an _I_ , it’s a _J_ ,” the Doctor said out loud, lifting the painting from its hook.  “Johannes Vermeer—that was one way he signed his initials.”  His fingertips ran lightly across the picture.  “This is a reproduction—she already returned the original to Earth.”  Where the picture had been was a tiny hole, almost indistinguishable from the pattern on the fabric wall covering.  The Doctor peered into the hole, but saw nothing.  He inserted the tip of his small finger and felt something cool and smooth.  Glass.

The Doctor aimed the sonic screwdriver at the hole, trying one setting, than another.  Without warning, a beam of light shot out from the glass lens, and a life-sized hologram of Romana appeared beside the Doctor, so real he almost cried out in shock.

“Congratulations,” she smiled, looking not at him but at some unseen recording device.  “I’m guessing you solved my little riddle, Doctor.  This message is for you.  If you’re listening to it now, I’m probably dead.”  Her composure hadn’t rattled as she’d spoken.  “In which case, the Time Lords are losing the war.  And it’s important that you listen carefully to this message, Doctor, and follow my instructions.”

“Oh, Romana,” he whispered.

“Time Lord technology must never fall into the Daleks’ hands—well, they don’t have hands—but you understand what I mean, Doctor.  They must never acquire Gallifreyan time travel technology.  They’d destroy all of creation, everywhere, at every point in time, in every universe.  If life is to continue in any form at all, the Time Lords’ knowledge must be destroyed.  And you know there’s only one way to do that.”

“No,” said the Doctor.  “Oh, no.  Please, Romana.  Don’t make me do this.”

“The telepathic passkey to the president’s suite also opens a safe in the floor of my anteroom,” Romana went on.  “Inside the safe is a doomsday weapon, Doctor, a bomb capable of destroying a planet.  If it becomes evident that the Daleks are winning the war, Doctor, you must use the bomb to destroy Gallifrey.”

The Doctor stood staring at the hologram, wondering how Romana could have thought through this unspeakable scenario with such cool logic.

“The bomb needs to be detonated inside the Eye of Harmony,” Romana went on.  “Only the president can open the Eye.  You need three things: the seal of the president, the handprint of the president, and the passkey.  You know the passkey.  The president’s seal is in the safe, along with the bomb.  And I’ve left you a glove of synthetic skin, which contains a perfect replica of my handprint and my genetic code.  You must go down to the Eye of Harmony, underneath the Panopticon.  If you can’t use the lift to get down there, find the old maintenance shafts.  Not all of them have been sealed off, and any one will take you to the Eye.”

Romana concluded, “Doctor, I’m sorry to have to burden you with this.  If by some miracle you’re able to escape the war and the destruction of the planet, please forgive me.  If I live, I’ll gladly take on this burden myself.  But if I don’t live, you’re the only one I know I can trust to do the right thing.”

She sighed, her shoulders rising and falling.  “Doctor, if I’m dead, you might look into the movements of Lord Prasutagus—he’s been behaving oddly, and I don’t trust him.”

Lord Prasutagus.  The young Time Lord responsible for Susan’s cohort at the Academy…

Softly, Romana said, “My dear Doctor.  I owe you so much—my life, my freedom, the ability to think for myself.  Thanks to you, I know what it truly means to be a Time Lady—and a woman.  I hope you never need to hear this message, but if you’re listening now, know that I loved you beyond what I ever could have imagined.  I’m so, so sorry to have to ask this of you.  Goodbye.”

And the hologram flickered into blue static before vanishing completely.

The Doctor stood staring at the spot where she had been, as if he could somehow will her to return with only his eyes, too numb even for tears.

A searing flash of light outside the Citadel nearly blinded him, and a series of explosions rocked the city, causing the tower to sway back and forth.  The Doctor threw himself to the floor and waited, shaking with fear, until the structure settled back onto its foundation.  There was no telling how much longer the building would survive the onslaught.  The Doctor raced into Romana’s anteroom, his legs like rubber; he needed to remove the contents from her safe while the tower still stood.

(xiii)

When he opened his eyes in the empty Panopticon, he was lying facedown on the cold floor, his breathing harsh and ragged: he’d been sobbing in his trance.  _Romana_.  If he reached back into the right corner of his memory, he could recall exactly her taste, her scent, the texture of her skin and hair, the sound of her voice, a memory as potent as perfume or song.

He didn’t stand.  Somewhere in the shadows of the Panopticon, Ten paced.  The Doctor could hear the whisper of his rubber-soled feet on the marble floor, feel the faint cool breeze stirred by the movement of the long, tan coat.  The Papal Mainframe was like a leopard, stalking its wounded prey, waiting to make the final, lethal strike.  Right now the Doctor was still too strong, still a danger.  He would need to be further weakened before the Papal Mainframe would deliver the _coup de grâce_.

The ultimate irony of the Time War was that the Doctor had destroyed Gallifrey not to protect all creation from the Daleks, but from the Time Lords.  Unable to bear the thought of their own demise, the Time Lords had sought to destroy all reality in order to preserve an existence as disembodied entities, leaving the Doctor to face the most agonizing decision of his life.

Any hesitation that might have kept the Doctor from taking that final, dreadful step had dissolved when he’d discovered the truth in Romana’s message: Lord Prasutagus had betrayed her to the Daleks.  The same cabal of Time Lords that had resurrected the Master had known Romana would never countenance their next desperate scheme: to resurrect Rassilon, the most brilliant, devious, and corrupt of their species.  Romana had to die, but in a way that made her seem like another casualty of the war…

The Doctor remembered too well his rage at Lord Prasutagus.  He might have murdered the traitor himself, but he’d stayed his hand, and in the end, Lord Prasutagus had been shot down by a Dalek—a fitting end for such a treasonous devil.  It was Lord Prasutagus, too, who had given the Daleks access to the Academy, allowing them to wipe out the future of the Time Lords.  The Doctor only wished Lord Prasutagus had lived long enough to be trapped forever in the vicious time loop of unending death: Susan and Romana both had been spared that horror, but so, alas, had their murderer.

“I can’t have it all,” the Doctor said to himself.  “Not even I can arrange everything the way I want it to be, death least of all.”

“Damn straight,” said Ten, his hand like ice on the Doctor’s shoulder.

(xiv)

Warmth and darkness.  Not pitch blackness, but a pleasant dimness—pale daylight filtered by blinds and curtains.  A soft, cocooning warmth in which he could have floated almost indefinitely.  He was lying in a bed—a lovely bed: firm and supportive, yet plush and yielding, the kind of bed in which all the kinks of one’s spine would release, one by one.  Even the pillow beneath his head felt marvelous.  He stretched each muscle, then turned onto his other side.  And froze.

Beside him, curled up and sleeping, lay a female figure.  The Doctor blinked, pushing himself onto his elbow, inhaling a pungent, musky scent—a miasma of sweat and vanilla, shot through with a sharp jab of expensive perfume—a dot behind each ear, another behind the knees.  How did he know that?  How did he know exactly where this woman would dab her perfume?  He stared at her head, at the spill of wheat-blonde hair across the pillowcase.

The Doctor turned his gaze to the room, whose contours became clearer as the light outside the windows grew more insistent.  _Was I dreaming?_   He must have been—but he couldn’t remember anything from before he’d fallen asleep, only a vague sense of disquiet, a sense of something amiss that he couldn’t quite pinpoint.  The more he tried to focus, the more elusive it became.

_The limitations of the human mind_ , he thought, then jolted.  Human?  He was a Time Lord—why should he imagine he was human?  The Doctor put a hand to his chest, feeling for the familiar thudding.  _Lub-dup, lub-dup_.  One heart.  Only one.  He was human.

Stunned, he sat straight up.  When had this happened?  An unplanned accident with the chameleon arch?  No, in that case he wouldn’t be able to remember anything, and the Doctor could remember quite clearly that he was a Time Lord. 

Daylight had revealed the room as modest in size but pleasingly proportioned, with tall windows, tasteful wallpaper, and plush carpeting.  The Doctor’s hand reached out to stroke the coverlet, which was made of some heavy, slubby material, like silk.  Not far from the bed sat a chair, a man’s clothing strewn over it, as if he’d disrobed in a hurry.  Mixed among the shirt and trousers, the jacket and necktie, he spotted a woman’s clothing: a short skirt, a bright blue knitted top, crumpled black stockings, knickers, and a bra.

The Doctor realized that beneath the sensuously luxurious sheets, he was naked as the day he’d been born.  A hot blush swept up his face.  What was he _doing_ here?  Wherever “here” was—?

Beside him, the woman rolled over and sat upright, the covers sliding down over her bare torso, exposing lovely round breasts tipped with pale pink nipples.

“Morning,” she smiled.  “Happy Christmas.”

“Rose?” he said stupidly.

She laughed, “You always look so surprised.”  But when she angled in for a kiss, he drew away.  “What?” she asked.

“I—Rose?  It’s really you?”

“Yeah!”  She held up her left hand, an extravagant diamond visible even in the low light.

The Doctor looked down at his own right hand, at the ring of gold on his third finger.  “We’re married?”

“Mmm-hmm,” she said, snuggling into his side.  “Soon as we got home from Norway, remember?  Right here in the garden—Mum did all the decorating—don’t you remember?”

In an agony of confusion, the Doctor wracked his memory.  And suddenly, like a file being uploaded into his brain, scores of images flashed across his mind’s eye.  How could he have been so stupid?

“Rose—I’m sorry—I’m being an ass—”

“You’ve been dreaming again,” she said, a statement, not a question.  “Sometime it just takes you a bit longer to wake up.”  She caressed his arm with one hand.  “All those memories to sort.”

“I’m the clone,” the Doctor realized, speaking out loud.  “The half-human clone that Donna created from my hand.”

“You’re still the Doctor, though,” Rose told him, her fingers now running through the pelt of hair on his chest.  “You remember everything we did together.  That’s what matters, not whether you’ve got two hearts or one.”

“I do remember,” the Doctor said.  His breathing began to shift as her hand moved lower.  “I remember everything now.”

“ _Everything?_ ” she teased.

“Aah—Rose—oh, my giddy aunt.”  The Doctor closed his eyes, letting Rose pleasure him with her hand.  A few moments later, she turned him onto his back, straddling his hips with her muscular thighs.

“Now do you remember?” she breathed.

“Oh, yes,” the Doctor gasped.  He clutched her hips, gazing up at her sweaty face as they gyrated together.  How could he forget?

(xv)

After they’d showered and dressed, the Doctor realized he and Rose were living in a cozy cottage on Pete and Jackie’s extensive property, set back among some graceful trees.  Hand in hand, they crossed the lawn together to the main house.  Underfoot, the grass was brown and dead; overhead, bare tree limbs created a black latticework against the blue sky, and the air held a crystalline chill.  The Doctor watched his breath puff out.

Memories kept flooding back, filling in the gap from the time he’d come to live in this universe.  At first, he and Rose had stayed with the Tylers until the second house could be built.  He’d been working with Rose and Pete at Torchwood One in London, where everyone knew him as Dr. John Smith.  Thanks to some of Pete’s less savory connections, the Doctor now had a full set of human identification papers.  Since the wedding, Rose had been calling herself Rose Tyler Smith. 

The Doctor remembered the imposing portico of the main house from the time that he—the other him—and Rose and Mickey had visited this universe.  Now the door was unlocked, and he could see from the foyer that Jackie had transformed the house from a cold, impersonal showplace to a warm, inviting home, festooned at this time of year with Christmas decorations.  The scents of breakfast and coffee made the Doctor’s mouth water.  From the deeper inside came the sound of Christmas music—Pete was playing the piano—and the laughter of a small boy.

A moment later, a tiny, red-haired whirlwind tore through the foyer, colliding with Rose.

“Look what Santa brought me!” he shouted, grabbing his sister’s hand.

“All right, all right!” she laughed, winking at the Doctor.

Unwrapped gifts and toys lay strewn across the parlor.  In one corner stood a magnificent green fir tree, which the Doctor recalled they’d cut down in the dense woods on their property.  Every branch sparkled with ornaments and glitter and lights that winked like tiny, multicolored gemstones.  At the apex of the tree soared a white-robed angel with outspread wings, a golden horn raised to her lips.  A fire crackled in the fireplace, warming the room.

Jackie sat on one of the sofas, legs curled beneath her, clad in a fuzzy pink dressing gown, talking on the phone.  She paused for a moment to call out, “Happy Christmas!” before resuming her conversation.  “Oh, it’s just Rose and himself, come over for breakfast.”

Pete emerged from the music room to embrace his daughter and son-in-law.  “Happy Christmas,” he said.  “Breakfast?”

“Sounds wonderful,” the Doctor said.

“If Tony will let me,” Rose laughed, sitting on the floor to look at the excited toddler’s new toys.  She and the Doctor played with Tony until Pete called that breakfast was ready.  He’d made omelets and bacon and toast.  The coffee had been brewed to buttery-rich perfection.  In the center of the kitchen sat a large basket of citrus fruit, a gift from their American colleagues at Torchwood Florida.  Pete had cut and sectioned a grapefruit for Rose and the Doctor to share, the flesh plump and pink, each mouthful a juicy explosion of sweetness in the mouth.  By the time they’d finished eating—Rose groaning, gorged almost into a stupor—Jackie was off the phone.  She puttered out into the kitchen, kissed everyone, and poured herself a cup of tea.  The Doctor stared at the front of her dressing gown, which extruded outward at her abdomen.

“You’re pregnant,” he said.

“You didn’t get the memo?” Pete smiled.

“Someone drank too much brandy last night,” Jackie sighed, ruffling the Doctor’s hair as she took a seat at the table.  “I’m not an old woman yet, you know.”

“Sorry, he’s a bit out of sorts,” said Rose.

“Just so long as he remembers who he’s married to,” Jackie said.

The Doctor put an arm around Rose.  “Like I could forget.”

“Yeah, well you didn’t look so sure of that when you woke up this morning,” Rose laughed, giving the Doctor a playful nudge.

More memories flashed into the Doctor’s mind.  Jackie was about four months along.  She’d already had a test and knew the baby would be a girl; she’d settled on the name Emma Claire.

He sat listening while Rose chatted with her parents.  Tony toddled into the kitchen, pushing a toy truck around the floor.  The Doctor basked in the sense of warmth and familiarity, the cozy steadiness of living life in one place, one day at a time, the kind of existence that for most of his life would have bored him senseless—the very idea of “settling down” was anathema to him.  But now he reveled in the love of his unlikely family.  Outside the window, Jackie’s garden lay serene in the mellow, diffuse winter sunlight.  He watched birds flitter into and out of the feeder.  The small sounds of the household contributed to his sense of contentment: not only the voices around him, but the hum of the refrigerator, the rumble of the furnace, the tiny clicking noises made by the coffee maker.  Now and again he would hear the faint pop of burning wood from the fireplace, or the calls of the birds outside.

So why, when everything was so right, did the Doctor feel so _wrong_?

Maybe he always felt like this.  Could there be any existence more strange than clone-hood?  Knowing you were literally a genetic carbon copy of another person?  It was different from being someone’s identical twin—he had been created by accident, from a piece of his own flesh.  He possessed all the memories from the original Doctor’s centuries of life.  He possessed the personality of the original Doctor’s tenth incarnation.  He possessed all the knowledge of a Time Lord.  If the TARDIS had materialized right here in the kitchen, he could have walked inside it and operated the controls without even needing to think.  In every important sense, he was the Doctor—but he wasn’t.  He had only one heart.  He was aging—slowly and subtly, but he could see the difference in his appearance, even after only a few months in this universe.  He would grow old with Rose, and die.  There would be no regeneration; their bodies would lie in the earth together.  Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.  He found the thought peaceful, comforting almost, knowing that one day all awareness would cease.

But this wasn’t _right_.  Why did this world feel so artificial?  He went to the window and stared out at the garden, the bird feeder.  In the distance, the treetops moved in a faint breeze.  If he listened carefully, he could hear the occasional sound of a car passing by on the road beyond the hedges.  He could see tiny irregularities in the texture of the lawn, the pale veins in the smooth granite countertop beneath his hands.  Behind him, Jackie was cleaning Tony’s nose with a tissue.  If this world were artificial, the level of sensory detail was staggering.

“Well, let’s open some presents,” Jackie was saying.  “Otherwise we’ll still be in our dressing gowns at dinnertime.”

In the parlor, they opened gifts, exclaiming as each item emerged from its layers of gift wrap and tissue.  Tony grew tired of playing—he’d been up since before five, according to Jackie—and curled up on the sofa beside Pete for a nap.  When all the gifts had been opened and thank-yous exchanged, Rose and Jackie vanished into the kitchen to begin the preparations for dinner, while Pete tidied up the parlor.

“Sorry—I’m a bit useless at anything domestic,” the Doctor said.

“Do what you do best,” Pete said, pointing through the doorway to a small office where a laptop sat on a desk.  “Check that we’re not being invaded.”

With a brief laugh, the Doctor went into the office and sat at the computer, logging into his account at Torchwood, his three passwords coming immediately to mind.  He checked all their surveillance outlets, finding nothing of note.  No emails or emergency messages, either.

“For once, a peaceful Christmas,” he said out loud.  “Where’s the fun in that?”  He surfed the web, and because he could, he hacked into the government’s network and made sure they weren’t withholding any information from Torchwood.  Then he activated a subroutine that would prevent the president’s geeks from tracing the breach back to Pete’s computers.  The entire exercise took less than five minutes.  Bored, the Doctor wandered back outside and strolled about the grounds.

He told himself again and again that everything around him was real.  If he wished, he could have taken one of Pete’s cars and driven into the city, or anywhere else in England.  Pete even had a small private airplane; three months earlier, the family had taken an autumn holiday in the south of France, flying into an airport in Cannes.  The Doctor could recall the places they’d seen, the food they’d eaten, the way the sky had looked, the warm Mediterranean sun, even pieces of conversation he’d had with Rose, with Pete, with Jackie.

Would he always feel like this, or was he just “settling in” as Rose sometimes said?  The Doctor noted the shifting position of the sun, the small shadows that flashed across the ground when birds flew by overhead.  This was his world now.  He lived here, and in a few decades, he’d die here.  Wasn’t that what he wanted?  Or did he secretly wish to be back in the TARDIS, in his Time Lord body, traveling through time and space?

Maybe some subconscious wish for his old life was seeping through, causing this sense of fracture to the day’s continuity.  The Doctor did resent, more than he cared to admit, the cavalier way he’d been dumped in this world.  His original self had been correct, though, that the two of them could not inhabit the same universe, let alone the same TARDIS.  The Doctor knew this, but it was difficult not to feel second-best, cast off, rejected.  Even his marriage to Rose, who he loved, felt like a consolation prize in that light.

No, he shouldn’t think like that.  He loved Rose—she was his life, his everything.  How gutted he’d been when he’d lost her, thrown into an emotional tailspin from which he’d needed a ridiculous amount of time to recover.  How sweet had been their reunion!  When he’d had the chance to be with her for the rest of this human life, he’d taken it gladly.  Yet how much happier he would be if the two of them had a TARDIS—that was what he’d liked best about his love affair with Rose, traveling with her through time, showing her the universe.

Without realizing it, the Doctor reached the furthest edge of the property and began to make a circuit along the perimeter.  The path took him past hedges that lined the inside of the tall, black iron fence, into the woods, through part of Jackie’s garden, and into more woods.  The trees grew densely together here, and the Doctor had to make his way with care.  Perhaps because these lower branches received no sunlight they were bare, even the conifers.  The Doctor frowned: some of the pines looked sickly and battered, whole boughs broken off, devoid of needles, save a small, sad-looking green thatch at the very top.

He’d have to tell Pete about this—if the trees were diseased they’d need to be cut down before the pestilence could spread around the rest of the property.  As the Doctor made his way among the bare, matchstick-like trunks, noting places where bark was peeling away, he began to feel that it wasn’t the trees but the whole of this world that was ill and dying.  He quickened his pace, glad to emerge into sunlight.

“Where’ve you been?” Jackie demanded when he got back to the house.  “Look at you—dirt all over your shoes!  Go and wash—company’ll be here by half-five.  Go on—shift!”

Rose, who was setting the dining room table, looked up at the Doctor and grinned.

“She doesn’t change, does she?”

The Doctor laughed ruefully.  “Never.”

(xvi)

“Company” turned out to be other Torchwood staff: Gwen, Owen, and Tosh, as well as Willow and Daniel Osborne, two diminutive red-haired geeks, recruited by Pete from California.  Family filled out the rest of the table: Jackie’s sister and their mother, Pete’s aunt, a couple of his cousins, and their children, slightly older than Tony.  Since nobody but Rose and Pete knew about the death of Pete’s first wife, everyone assumed motherhood had been responsible for the changes in Jackie’s personality.

The Doctor remembered asking Rose, “What did Pete tell everyone?  How’d he explain his wife miraculously returning to life?”

“He never told them she died—he couldn’t exactly tell people she was turned into a Cyberman,” Rose had responded.  “He told them she’d run off and he didn’t know where she was—they were getting divorced anyway, remember?  So when Mum and I came to live here, Dad just said he and Mum patched things up.”

“What about you?” the Doctor had asked.  “A daughter that came from nowhere?”

“That’s the clever bit,” Rose had laughed.  “They said I was a kid they’d put up for adoption when they weren’t married, but that I’d traced them, and that’s why he and Mum separated—cos they had to get it all sorted.  They got back together and I moved in with them.”

“And does everyone believe that?”

“Sometimes they look at us like they think it’s all naff, but what’re they gonna do?  It’s Mum and Dad’s business, really.”

Maybe everyone just accepted that the Tylers were eccentric by nature.  When the Doctor had arrived on the scene and married Rose almost immediately, nobody had questioned it—nor did they question why Rose addressed her husband as “Doctor.”  Everyone called him that and referred to him as the Doctor rather than John or Dr. Smith.  But then, the Doctor thought, Torchwood was hardly an ordinary kind of workplace.  If people got their knickers in a twist over the Tylers’ domestic arrangements, Pete and Jackie weren’t going to fret about it.

Christmas dinner was a magnificent affair.  Jackie had roasted a goose and a turkey; there were trays of every conceivable vegetable and delicacy, and baskets of homemade bread.  Pete had fetched up a half-dozen bottles of his best wines from the extensive wine cellar, and everyone ate until they were ready to burst.  Outside the tall windows, darkness had fallen, and the long table glowed with candles, the entire dining room suffused with a deep golden light.

“Don’t worry about the mess.”  Jackie shooed everyone into the parlor, where they exchanged gifts with friends and extended family.  The children sat playing on the floor together while the adults drank and talked and enjoyed the warm fire.  Rose sat curled into the Doctor’s side, his arm around her shoulders.  The hands of the clock turned and started on their next journey around the hour, but nobody wanted the day to end.  The Doctor had begun to understand the human capacity for nostalgia.  Not that he’d never experienced that emotion, but he was more keenly aware now of the fleeting nature of this happiness.  Tomorrow would come and bring with it different things: joy, pain, sorrow, disappointment, regret.  There would be other Christmases, other celebrations, but never again this exact day.  Now that traveling back in time to any moment he pleased was not an option, the Doctor had begun to cherish even common experiences as the most precious things he could have imagined.

Two hours after dinner, Jackie served dessert, a vast buffet of sweets, accompanied by hot chocolate, coffee, and tea.  While their guests lolled about on the furniture, Rose and Jackie began washing up.

The children were the first to surrender to sleep, yawning and rubbing fists into eyes before finally slumping into their parents’ laps.  The adults began to reluctantly gather up gifts and bags and, at Jackie’s insistence, leftover food.  Pete’s cousins left first, carrying their children, then Jackie’s sister and their mother, until at last only the Torchwood staff remained.  They sat drinking and gossiping until the fire burned low and the grandfather clock tolled out the twelve strokes of midnight.

“Well, happy Boxing Day,” said Pete.  “Everyone all right to drive home?”  Jackie had put Tony to bed and retired herself about two hours earlier.

“I’m the designated driver,” said Tosh, ushering Gwen and Owen out to her car.

“The same,” Willow said.  “The one night Daniel lets me drive.”

“Guinness and wrong-side driving,” Daniel agreed.  “They don’t really mix well.”

As the Osbornes’ Mini crunched away across the gravel driveway, Rose leaned into Pete’s side.

“Thanks for a wonderful Christmas, Dad.”

He kissed the top of her head.  “Every Christmas is wonderful with you and your mother here.”

Rose reached out an arm to encircle the Doctor.  “It’s our first Christmas together, too,” she said.

“Well, since we’ve been married,” the Doctor said.

“Hmm, and no alien invasion, either,” said Rose, gazing up at the star-strewn sky.

“Looks like they all took the night off,” Pete agreed.

They went back into the house, and Pete insisted the younger pair return to their cottage.  “You’re only young once,” he said.

“I’m not young,” the Doctor huffed.  “I’m older than you.”

“Young marrieds,” Pete said.  “Now, go.”  The Doctor knew Pete stayed up late at night, puttering about the house, extinguishing the fire and making sure doors and windows were locked, tidying up.  This habit dated back to his Gemini days, and also, the Doctor suspected, from the waning days of Pete’s unhappy first marriage.

Rose didn’t argue.  Smiling, she took the Doctor’s arm and they let themselves out through one of the doors at the rear of the house.  Hand in hand they walked in the chilly air to their cottage.  It seemed to the Doctor they’d only just walked to the main house for breakfast, and now the day was over, a day that could never be lived exactly the same way again.  He sighed, allowing himself to revel in the sense of melancholy, so different from his prior experiences with grief—this was a gentler and altogether more agreeable emotion—it lacked the piercing pain of his past losses and tragedies.

In the cottage, Rose gave him a smile that he’d learned to interpret with no difficulty.  She didn’t turn on the overhead lights, instead switching on a couple of small lamps.  The Doctor experienced that familiar below-the-belt tightening, one of those things about a human body he’d had to get used to—he no longer had the effortless Time Lord control over his physiological reflexes.  It still disconcerted him how often he was distracted by carnal thoughts of Rose, and at what inappropriate times.  When he was supposed to be thinking about algorithms or cataloging contraband alien technology or mapping solar flares, he’d be instead thinking about Rose’s smooth, firm breasts, the pertness of her derriere, or the slick, hot wetness of her vagina.  He’d be thinking about the way she wrapped her fingers around the hard length of his penis, or the way she liked to tickle gently the insides of his thighs.  And the sheer variety of positions she enjoyed!  She also used her mouth on him in the most extraordinary and delightful ways, and she encouraged him to do likewise—

Rose burst out laughing.

“What?” he said, indignant.

“You’ve got that look on your face.”

“Am I really so transparent?”

“Yes.”  She stood on her tiptoes to kiss him.

“Well, whose fault is that?” the Doctor teased.  He kissed her again and said, “You know, your whole body is a distraction—and don’t get me started on your scent when you—”

She put a shushing finger to his lips.  “No science lecture,” she scolded.  “I mean, it’s sexy coming from you, but it does kill the mood.  Now, come on, and I’ll give you a Christmas present you’ll never forget.”

The Doctor’s stomach did happy little flip-flops as she led him into their bedroom.

(xv)

Rose was true to her word.  Especially for Christmas, she’d indulged in a marvelous confection, a lingerie set in deep red silk, trimmed in black lace, the bodice designed to look like a Victorian corset.  Silky black stockings with coquettish back seams encased her legs, and a pair of black patent-leather spike-heeled shoes completed the outfit.  The visual was stunning, and had precisely the effect on the Doctor that Rose had intended.  The next hour passed in a blur of sweat and pheromones.

“You all right?” she asked when they were finished.

“Hmm?” the Doctor asked, still basking in post-coital euphoria, every inch of him throbbing with pleasure. “How could I not be all right?”

“Dunno,” she said.  “You’ve been out of sorts all day.”

“I’m fine,” he smiled.  “It’s just that _this_ —you know, human life—takes some getting used to.”

After another lingering kiss, she said, “I’ll tell you something else, if you’re ready for a surprise.”

“Another _present_?” he asked, putting a naughty emphasis on the word.

“Sort of.”  She took his hand and led it to her belly, giving him a meaningful look.  The Doctor needed a moment to connect the pieces, but when he did, his heart lurched.

“Rose,” he breathed.  “Oh, Rose!  Are you sure?”

“Had a test and everything,” she grinned.  “They rang me back yesterday.  Not even Mum knows.”

The Doctor pulled her into his arms, a wild elation soaring through him.  “I didn’t think—” he said.  “I wasn’t sure if we could—if it was even possible—”  They’d never used contraceptives, not once, over the entire course of their marriage, and after several months, the Doctor had begun to assume that he didn’t possess enough human DNA to conceive a child.  He’d never been so excited to be proven wrong.

“It’s possible,” she laughed.  “Completely possible.  A part Time Lord, part human baby.”

The Doctor tried to imagine it—a baby.  A child— _his_ child.  His and Rose’s.  A child to fill the horrible void created by the loss of his family on Gallifrey.  He tried to envision its hair, its eyes, its smile.  It would be intelligent, surely—perhaps time-sensitive as well—perhaps the first member of an entirely new species.

“I’m gonna tell Mum tomorrow,” Rose was saying.  “I know she’ll kill me for not telling her sooner.”

“Both of you expecting at once,” the Doctor said.  “We’ll have prams lined up like airplanes on a runway, up to our ears in nappies.”

“Dad’ll be chuffed,” said Rose.  “Mum, not so much—I can hear it now.”  In a spot-on impersonation of Jackie’s voice, she said, “‘I’m too young to be a grandmother!’”

The Doctor went rigid, feeling like a cold wind had blown through his psyche.

“What?” asked Rose, her brows pulling together.

“What you just said—it’s exactly what Jackie would say.”

“She’s my mum.  I know her pretty well.”

“It’s _too_ perfect.”  The Doctor pulled away from Rose, ignoring her hurt expression.  “This is all too perfect.”

Rose sat up, clasping her arms about her knees.  “I’m the one who’s supposed to be having funny moods, not you.”

The Doctor was on his feet, heedless of his complete nakedness.  “This isn’t real.  This world—it’s too perfect.  Everything’s exactly what I’d expect—not one thing is wrong; there isn’t one piece that doesn’t ring true.”

“Oh, God, is this because of that—that meta-crisis thingamabob?” asked Rose.  “Because of that weird gene splice between you and Donna?  Bit of a stroppy cow, wasn’t she?  Some of that must’ve rubbed off.”

The Doctor rounded on Rose—or the thing pretending to be Rose—and said, “Donna Noble is a million times the woman you’ll ever be.  You’re not even Rose—you’re just some incredibly clever simulacrum that’s using her face and voice, trying to lull me into complacency by showing me a life I can never have.  You’re good—you’re very, very good, I’ll give you that—but you’re not Rose Tyler.”

Rose’s eyes welled up.  “Doctor—Doctor, how can you say all those horrible things?”  With a hiccupping little sob, she said, “Look—if you want a divorce, just tell me—I know you hate it here, being human, stuck in one place and time—”

As she spoke, the Doctor was aware of the world outside their cottage falling away.  He went to a window, but all he could see was black nothingness.

“No,” said Rose, “no—don’t go out there, Doctor!  Stay here with me!”  Her voice broke, so appealingly, causing his emotional control to wobble like an out-of-synch gyroscope.  For one horrible moment, he contemplated surrender, contemplated returning to her arms, to her bed, to the soft, velvet chains of this world, as seductive as the honey-sweet nectar in a Venus flytrap.  “Don’t leave me alone again!”

Ignoring the spasm of guilt, the Doctor grabbed the nearest chair.

“No!” Rose screamed.  “No—Doctor—don’t!”

It was too late: the Doctor hurled the chair through the window.  The glass exploded outward, and a cold, sucking wind rushed into the room.  The last thing the Doctor heard before he flew out into the freezing darkness was Rose’s long, unbroken wail, mixed with the howl of a frustrated beast.  Then there was nothing.

(xvi)

A quiet, familiar humming awoke him.  The Doctor opened his eyes, feeling something cool and smooth beneath his cheek.  The glass floor of the console room.  He was in the TARDIS—alive, sane, safe.  A quick hand to the bowtie at his collar confirmed he was back in his most current body.

“Dreaming again,” he scolded himself.  “Need to get more sleep.  Now—where was I?”

He was alone in the TARDIS, the time rotor rising and falling in its steady, familiar cadence.  No companions—he must be on his own.

“That’s right,” he said, still talking out loud.  “Amy and Rory went home for good, didn’t they?  It’s just you and me again, isn’t it, Sexy?”

An almost imperceptible shift in the engines’ humming seemed to confirm this.

The Doctor tried to remember what he’d been doing before he’d fallen asleep, but everything was a jumble.  Not that such confusion was new to him—he’d lived so long, experienced so much, that dreams were always apt to leave him disoriented.  Maybe that was why he avoided sleeping—or tried to avoid it, anyway.

He set the ship’s coordinates.  “Time for a holiday,” he said.  “What do you think, Old Girl?  A few quiet days on Calabar Three, just what the Doctor ordered.”

The materialization sequence began, and when the final vibration ended, the Doctor strode over to the TARDIS doors and opened them wide.

Outside, all lay dim and quiet.  The Doctor stood in the doorway, listening, letting his telepathic sense flow out.  He didn’t like what he felt—a quivering sensation, as if the very air were alive.  The last time he’d experienced this phenomenon, he’d been in—

“The Library,” he said out loud.  “Yes, of course.”  The ship had materialized in the planet’s core.  The Doctor could just make out the bulky casing that housed the Library’s massive mainframe.  “Well, let’s shed some light on the matter.”  He darted back to the TARDIS console and toggled a few switches.  The flashing light on top of the box suddenly increased in intensity, illuminating the area around the ship, creating a circle of bright light extending about twelve meters in all directions.

“Much better.”  The Doctor left the doors open and stepped outside, turning carefully, looking about, avoiding the shadow cast by the ship.  “I don’t fancy becoming the Vashta Nerada’s next meal.”  There—the large control chair that River had used—would ultimately use—to end her life.  Further away, the Doctor spotted the lumpy shape of a white spacesuit lying on the floor: the skeletal remains of Anita, one of River’s ill-fated crew members.

The Doctor circled the area slowly, a sense of dread building inside him.  He spotted the silhouette of a courtesy node, an oval disk mounted on a tall white abstract sculpture.  With a quiet whir, the disk began to rotate, turning to face the Doctor.  The last time he’d been here, the node’s flesh aspect had been that of Charlotte Lux, the doomed little girl for whom the Library had been created.  Even before the disk finished turning, the Doctor knew whose face he would see now.

River’s eyes were closed, as if she were sleeping.  Her face was very still, which seemed terribly wrong—it was wrong not to see her animated by intelligence, passion, wit, her irrepressible _joie de vivre_.  The Doctor reached out a tentative hand, stroking her cool, smooth cheek, his eyes welling up.  He’d been avoiding this for so long, shoving this guilty knowledge to the back of his mind, hating that he’d had to conduct his entire maddening, intoxicating, wildly out-of-order relationship with River knowing one thing, one horrible thing: the exact time, place, and circumstances of her death.  Even as he’d grown to love her, he’d grieved her loss.  Above all, he hated that he had to keep this knowledge from her—the ultimate spoiler.

“‘She has a lovely face,’” he quoted.  “‘God in his mercy send her grace.’”

Without warning, the eyes opened: wide and blue-gray, unchanged.  River blinked a few times, spotted him, and smiled widely.

“Hello, Sweetie,” she said.

The Doctor couldn’t speak.

“Oh, hush, don’t cry,” she scolded him.  “You must be between companions now—why else would you come back for a visit with your dear old missus?”

His voice cracked.  “I miss you, River.  I’m—I’m so sorry about this.”

“Don’t be,” she said cheerfully.  “As afterlives go, this one has a lot to recommend it—good friends, a couple of charming children who never grow up and get annoying—they’re Donna’s kids, can you believe that?  She dreamed them up, and they’re still here because Cal wanted playmates.  And the stories!  Oh, the stories we can live—a new journey every day, and we still haven’t explored a fraction of the books in this place—the worlds, the adventures!”

“Are you happy?” the Doctor asked.

Tenderly, River said, “Well, I miss you, Sweetie.  Why don’t you come in and join me for a while?”  Her eyes rolled to the right, in the direction of the console chair.

The temptation was staggering, as enticing as the Doctor’s dream of Rose.  How easy it would be to leave behind all his pains and regrets, his never-ending loneliness, and join his wife in a world of digital make-believe.  He knew he could never enter that world for just “a while,” as River suggested.  Once he was in there, with her, he’d never leave again; in the far future, would some team of archeologists find the mummified husk of his remains still in that chair?

And he realized, too, that River’s offer and his dream of Rose were one and the same thing—a ploy to make him surrender.

“I’m sorry,” he said, touching her face again.  “I’m so sorry—when first I met you, I had no idea who you were, only that you were someday going to be so important to me.  I had to save you—even in some small way, like this.  I never had a chance to ask you if that was what you wanted.”

Her eyes narrowed, and the Doctor felt an ominous thunder emanating from her gaze.

“Well, now that you mention it, Sweetie, what in _hell_ were you thinking?  I’m miserable in here, Doctor—miserable, bored, frustrated—you couldn’t let me go, could you?  Couldn’t even consign me to peaceful oblivion!  Oh, no, you had to upload me like a Time Lord ghost into this wretched machine!  Just so you could come here and look at me and shed your damned crocodile tears!  Do you feel good about this, Doctor?  Are you happy knowing you ‘saved’ me into a virtual reality that’s more like my idea of Hell?”

So immense was her anger that the Doctor stepped back a couple of paces, as if she were truly capable of harming him.  Then she started to laugh, cruel and mocking.

“Look at you,” she said.  “You know, your professors on Gallifrey were right all those centuries ago.  You really are pathetic.  A pathetic, good-for-nothing excuse for a Time Lord.”

The reality of the situation filtered into the Doctor’s consciousness in gradual stages.  He was in the Papal Mainframe, knowledge he’d blocked from the start of his dream about Rose.  The part of his mind that yearned for peace, for escape, had taken control, tantalizing him with the possibility of release, of unending happiness with a woman he loved.  Normal human life with Rose in another universe, a fantasy existence with River in a virtual reality—there wasn’t much difference between the two.  Both represented a longing for something he desired, but something that also would bore him to the point of madness.  Acknowledging this paradox provided the Doctor with an unexpected moment of clarity and peace.

“I’m tired of this game,” he said, addressing the Papal Mainframe itself.  “Tired of my friends’ faces and voices being used against me.  And I don’t have to play if I don’t want to.”  He made a mocking little salute with his hand.  “Buh-bye.”  Ignoring River’s final insult, he turned on his heel and strode back into the TARDIS, slamming the doors shut behind him.

“Enough of this,” he said, setting the controls.  “Let’s be on our way, Sexy.”

When the ship materialized again, the Doctor opened the doors to find himself in the second-floor hallway of Amy’s house in Leadworth.

He sighed, muttering, “Always here, always with the Ponds.”  He called out, “Hello?” and looked about, but there didn’t seem to be anyone at home.  The Doctor pushed open the door into Amy’s bedroom—no, Amelia’s bedroom: the narrow bed covered with a patchwork quilt, the desk and table strewn with her artwork.  The Doctor studied all the childish drawings and representations of himself and the TARDIS, over and over and over again, as if Amelia had thought she could somehow will him to appear if she created enough images of him.

“Always disappointing someone, aren’t you?”  Ten strolled in from the hallway, hands in his trouser pockets.  “So many friends—they worshipped you like a god, but you let them down, time and time again.  You could never be what they needed you to be—father, brother, lover, not even a very good friend.  Did you ever think about that—the hearts you broke, the lives you shattered?”

“I never compelled anyone to come with me,” the Doctor said.

“No, but you enticed them,” Ten said.  “Lured them with the promise of space-time travel.  What silly, simple human could resist the chance to see the stars, the past, the future?  And how many of them left you of their own volition?  Most didn’t leave until circumstance—or you—forced them to.  They were besotted with you, with your life of endless freedom.”

The Doctor said, “I never misled anyone.”

“You didn’t have to,” Ten said.  “Their own imaginations did that… so many friends, infatuated, waiting in the hope you’d come to regard them as something more.”

“I didn’t encourage that,” the Doctor huffed.

Ten looked around at little Amelia’s artwork.  “She’s just a replacement for Susan, isn’t she?  Like so many of the others. That’s why people like Mickey and Rory rubbed you the wrong way—they didn’t worship you; they could see you for what your really are—a time-traveling parasite, preying on the dreams of the innocent.  You love it, don’t you, the adoring way they all look at you—even one as clever as River.  That’s why so many of your companions are human—they’re children, like Susan, always in awe of the great man, never able to see the little worm hiding inside the all-knowing hero.”

Outside the house, thunder rumbled and lighting flashed.

“Are you quite done?” the Doctor asked.  “Because I’m tired of listening.”  He pointed the sonic screwdriver at the wall.  With a growl and a hiss, the jagged crack opened.  Beyond lay nothing, the blackness of the Void.  Under his breath, the Doctor said, “‘Out flew the web and floated wide/ The mirror crack’d from side to side.’”

“‘‘The curse is come upon me,’ cried/ The Lady of Shalott,’” said Ten, finishing the quotation.  “A bit melodramatic, don’t you think?”

“It suits,” the Doctor said.  “I’m half-sick of shadows.”

“And so you end your own life to escape it.”  Ten rocked back and forth on his feet.  “Coward.  As usual.”

“It’s the only way out,” the Doctor said.  “Surrendering to Rose or River would’ve kept me in the Papal Mainframe forever—which, as ways to destroy your enemies go, isn’t a bad one.  Well, sorry—this is one Song you can’t kill me softly with.”

“You’ll never tell her, will you?” Ten gloated.  “She won’t learn your dirty secret until the very last moments of her life.  Cruel, wouldn’t you say?”

“Too much foreknowledge is a dangerous thing,” the Doctor said.  “For her.  Even for me.”  And he strode toward the wall, the crack, vanishing into nothingness.

(xvii)

He returned to his body with a jolt, jumping back from the glowing control panel, shaking his arms and hands, as if to rid himself of the memory of the experience.  Beside him, River stood gasping, her eyes wild.  Then she put her hands on her hips and demanded, “Doctor, why did you kill those guards?”

**To be continued…**


	5. Half-Sick of Shadows--Chapter Four

_Chapter Four_

The Doctor stared at River with a dumbfounded expression, baffled by her apparent non-sequitur.

“Guards?” he repeated.  “What guards?”

She folded her arms, glaring at him.  “The ones who beat me!”

“Beat you?”  His brow furrowed into deep, wavy lines, as his confusion gave way to concern.  “When?”

“Fifteen years ago, in Stormcage time,” River said.

“What?”  The Doctor scratched behind one ear.  “Why don’t I know about this?”

“Because you didn’t visit me for the better part of a year,” River said, startled by the depths of her anger.  She hadn’t realized, until this moment, just how much rage she still harbored.  “Which I’m sure you don’t even remember.”  He looked so befuddled that River exploded, “Before I had the vortex manipulator!  You know, it’s still a prison, Doctor—it’s not a holiday camp or a spa!  Brutality is hardly uncommon behavior for prison guards!”

“What’d they beat you for?  You escape all the time!”

“It wasn’t for escaping,” River said through her teeth.  “I made the mistake of standing up for a laundress when an overbearing prison warden wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

“How—how badly were you hurt?” asked the Doctor.

“Oh, I was only in medical for six or seven weeks—a few broken bones, multiple bruises and lacerations, both eyes swollen shut, had to be fed intravenously for a while—really, nothing major.”

He just kept staring, wounded by her biting sarcasm.  Finally, he said, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t insult me,” River snapped.

“No, I am—River—I had no idea.  Why didn’t you tell me?”

“What difference would it have made?” she asked.

“I—” he waffled.  “I could’ve—I might’ve—”

“What, popped into solitary one night and told me silly jokes?”

“Solitary?  You were in solitary confinement?”

“Yes, a black pit in the basement of Stormcage.  Next time you bring me back there, I’ll show you.  Charming place—first class accommodations.”

“Why’d they put you in solitary?”

“Automatic sentence for any prisoner who attacks a guard.”

“Those guards—why’d you think I killed them?”

“Of course you killed them!  They both died within months of the attack on me—one was poisoned and the other fell off the prison battlements—that’s too much coincidence for me to believe.  Of course it was you!”

The Doctor drew himself up with wounded dignity.  “River—I swear I never killed anyone in Stormcage.”

“Who else was it, then?”  River was aware she was ranting but seemed unable to stop herself.  “You must’ve popped back in time and killed both of them to salve your miserable conscience!”

“And cold-blooded murder _wouldn’t_ weigh on my conscience?” he asked.

River stared at him.  “You really didn’t kill them?”

“On my honor,” he said.

“Rule One—you always lie.”

“Not this time.  Not about something like this.”

River exhaled in a gusty burst and turned in a circle two or three times, trying to organize her chaotic thoughts, staring at the glowing control panels as if they could give her the satisfaction she sought.  The Doctor put a hand on her shoulder.

“Don’t touch me!” she exploded.

“Does it make you feel better,” he asked, “knowing I didn’t kill them?”

“I don’t—”  River ran a hand through her curls, trying to pinpoint exactly how she _did_ feel.  After so much emotional manipulation by the Papal Mainframe, anger and resentment burned at her core, and none of the Doctor’s words seemed capable of dampening the fire.  His calmness only served to further enrage her.

“No, no, of course you didn’t kill them,” River said, finding a new outlet for her frustration.  “God forbid you get blood on your hands.  So much easier to let everyone else do your dirty work for you.”

“All right, first you were angry because you thought I killed them, and now you’re angry because I didn’t.  River—you’re not making sense.”

“How could I not be angry?” she screamed at him.  “I didn’t see you for almost a year; I didn’t know if you were dead or alive!  Imprisonment in Stormcage is a lark when you can escape whenever you please, but when your designated driver buggers off for a year and you don’t know if he’ll ever come back, it’s another matter entirely!  Yes, I’m angry at you, Doctor!  I took the fall to protect you from the Silence; you could be a little less cavalier about it!”

The Doctor said, “Would you honestly have wanted me to kill them?”

“Like it would’ve made a difference,” River snorted.  “I’ll tell you want I wanted, Doctor, and that was you!  I wanted you at my side when I was in so much pain I couldn’t move, when I was locked in a pit so black I couldn’t see my own hand!  Where the hell were you?”

“I don’t know!” the Doctor shouted.  “I had no idea I was even gone that long from your perspective!  You never said!”  Lowering his voice a fraction, he said, “Would it really mean that much to you if I went back in time, found those guards, and—”  His head jerked to one side, a gesture of brutal finality.  “Would that make you feel better?”

“It won’t undo what happened,” River said.  “Or the fact that I spent months in agony and then buried alive in solitary.  Can you appreciate what that was like, Doctor?”

“If you want me to share all my experiences being imprisoned and tortured, we’ll be here for a while,” the Doctor said.

“Don’t belittle what happened to me!” River yelled.  Her right hand alternately twitched toward her blaster and curled into a fist, as if torn between shooting the Doctor and punching that stupid expression off his face.  “You miserable fuck!”

“All right, then.”  The Doctor had been pacing, but now he stopped, fixing River with his level, cool gray gaze.  “I’ll kill them for you.”

“You wouldn’t,” River said.

Raising one eyebrow he said, “It’s not like I’ve never taken life, River.  What’s a little more blood on my hands?  Tell me how they died—I’ll go back in time and make sure it happens—give fate a little nudge.”

She snorted, “You’re bluffing, you coward.  I know you—we’ll get back to the TARDIS, you’ll be conveniently distracted by something else, and Stormcage will be forgotten.”

“No.”  He shook his head.  “No, I mean it, River.”  He crossed both hearts.  “Whatever you want.”

“Not you,” she said, sneering through her teeth.  “You’re much too _good_ for cold-blooded assassination.  You don’t have the stomach for it.”

“You don’t know me as well as you think you do,” he said, and in his stormcloud eyes, River glimpsed all of his 1515 years, the kinds of horrors that made her experiences with the Silence and in prison seem like ephemera by contrast.  “We may be married, but I’ve still only shared with you a tiny fraction of my life.  If you want me to kill those guards, if it will give you peace, I’ll do it.  Or, if you’d rather, I’ll take you back and you can kill them yourself.  Or, if you’d prefer eternal punishment for them, that can be arranged, too.”

“I don’t believe you.”  But River’s voice faltered.

“Ask me about the Family of Blood.”

A long silence stretched between them.  The Doctor glanced at his watch.  “Let’s get moving,” he said.  “It’s a long way to the surface.”

“You wouldn’t,” River said.

“Do you want me to?” he repeated.  “If you want me to, I will.”

For a moment, River debated saying yes, just to see if the Doctor could steel himself to commit such an act.  But looking at his beloved face, her resolve crumbled, taking with it her petty anger, her childish wish to force the Doctor to do something he found abhorrent.

“Well?” he pressed.  “It’s up to you.”

River shook her head, mouthing the word no.

“Why not?”

“I—I can’t make you do that,” she said.  “It’s not you—it’s not who you are.  It’s not why I love you.”

He stepped closer.  “Tell me why you love me.”

“You know why, Sweetie.”

“Tell me,” the Doctor insisted.  “Say it out loud.”

Why did she love him?  The reasons were so vast and frankly irrational that River doubted she could put such a complex array of emotions into mere words.

Grasping at a memory, she said, “Do you know what first made me fall in love with you?  It was Berlin.  You were dying and in excruciating pain, but you didn’t care about yourself.  You asked me to save Amy and Rory.  It didn’t even matter to you that I was the one who’d poisoned you.  All you cared about was saving your friends.  You even begged me to help you—me, the woman who was trying to kill you!  Nothing in my training could have prepared me for that.  It was the most unselfish thing I’d ever seen.  You weren’t angry at me.  You didn’t want vengeance against me.  You forgave me and only wanted me to help my parents.  How could I not love that?”

He touched her face, and River felt as if tight chains that had held her bound were suddenly released.  She threw her arms around the Doctor, pulling him close.

“Oh, Sweetie, whatever got into me?”

“Shh,” he whispered in her ear, his voice barely audible.  “It’s the Papal Mainframe—it was trying to turn us against each other.”

“What do we do?” River whispered back.  “How can we fight it?”

The Doctor answered by kissing her, long and passionate.

She drew back, staring at him.  “Seriously?  Now?  Here?”

With an enormous grin, he began to disrobe.

River thought for an instant he must be mad, but his shirt fluttered to the floor, exposing his long, pale, subtly muscled torso.  He drew her into his arms again, and River realized he was completely serious.

“All right,” she gasped when they came up for air.  “This works for me, too.”  She unbuttoned her lightweight shirt, unzipped her khaki trousers and let them fall, then casually stripped off her sports bra.  At last, she peeled out of her knickers and let them drop around her ankles.  The Doctor, meanwhile, had kicked off his thin shoes and removed his trousers; as usual, he wore nothing beneath them.  He embraced River again, the hard length of his erection pressing against her belly.  His hands slid down her spine to the round curves of her bottom and the backs of her thighs.  River likewise caressed his back, his firm, muscular buttocks, his slim hips.  She wasn’t sure what good he thought sex would do, but she allowed herself to be drawn down to her knees.  The Doctor turned onto his back, sparing River the cold floor, encouraging her to straddle him with her thighs.

“What do you love about me?” he asked, sliding a hand between her legs.

“Fishing for compliments?” she asked, then gasped, “Oh!” when he opened her folds and began to gently stroke her clitoris with one finger.

“Tell me,” he insisted.

River arched her back, moaning as she rocked into his hand. 

“Tell me!”

“Oh, Sweetie,” River groaned.  “Everything—I love everything about you—your hands and eyes and voice—”  She cried out when she came, but continued, “I love your brains and your crazy—sense of adventure.”  Panting, she went on, “I love your secrets and even your lies.  I love having your hands on me.  I love the way my nipples get hard when you stroke the TARDIS console.”  River paused, shuddering as she came again.  Impatient now, she pushed the Doctor’s hands aside and sank down on top of him, guiding his hard shaft of flesh into her slippery wetness.  “Oh, God, I love the way your cock feels inside me.”

River began rocking her hips, moving in a way that would cause both of them the most intense pleasure.  The Doctor shouted, banging his fists on the floor, then grasped her by the waist, pushing up to meet her.

“Tell me why you love me,” River demanded.

“Oh, River—everything about you drives me mad.”  The Doctor’s face screwed up in a hilarious expression.  “I love your crazy hair, your gun, the way you walk like you own the universe—”  He broke off, gasping.  “I love the way you smell and the way nothing fazes you; I love your brains, your guts, and your lipstick and your handcuffs and those _shoes_ of yours—”

“My fuck-me shoes,” River taunted.

“God help me, I even love your spoilers—”  They were moving faster and faster now, and River came hard enough to see stars, and the Doctor shouted, “Even when you killed me, I loved you!”  They climaxed together, thrashing so wildly that River could barely keep the Doctor beneath her; he was shouting her name, she was screaming; River came again and again until she was utterly spent, and they collapsed together in a tangle of sweaty limbs.

(ii)

River jumped, staggering backwards, disoriented by the sudden, pitch darkness.

“Doctor!” she gasped.  “What happened?  Where are we?”  Then, “Why am I standing up?  And dressed?

There was a click, and a moment later, a wide beam of light lit up the small space.  The access portal had gone completely dead, the computer screens all black, the blinking lights gone out.  River realized the Doctor had switched on his mining lamp, and she did likewise.

“I smell something burning,” she said, her nose wrinkling.

The Doctor was casting his sonic screwdriver back and forth across the panel, checking the readings.

“Why are we dressed?” asked River.  “We were on the floor humping like dogs a minute ago.”

“No, we weren’t,” the Doctor said.  “That was a simulation—we were still inside the Papal Mainframe.”  Lowering the sonic screwdriver, he said, “Like _dogs_?”

“Want me to be a little more Victorian about it?” River laughed.  “As virtual reality experiences go, that one packed quite a wallop.”

“It’s dead,” the Doctor told her.

“What’s dead?”

“The Papal Mainframe.”  He showed her the readings from the sonic screwdriver.  “We destroyed it.”

Blankly, River asked, “How?”

The Doctor coughed, looking embarrassed.

“What, we shagged it to death?”  River’s voice rose on a note of incredulity.  “With our clothes still on?”  She began to laugh, loud and raucous.  “Damn, I’m good.”

“Illogic,” the Doctor said.

“Come again?”  River kept laughing.  “Oh, wait, you already did.”

“Stop it,” the Doctor complained.  “Can you be serious for one moment?  The Papal Mainframe is a computer.  The one thing it can’t abide is illogic—things that don’t make sense.”

“Like you and me?” River asked, catching his meaning.

“Exactly,” the Doctor said.  “We should never have fallen in love.  You were raised and trained and brainwashed into killing me.  You’re an assassin who was sent to murder me, but instead you fell in love with me.”

“And instead of hating and fearing and resenting me, you loved me in return and forgave me for trying to kill you,” River said.

“Love and forgiveness,” the Doctor said.  “Two things a machine will never understand.  We blew every circuit in its motherboard.”

“Are you sure?” River asked.  “We really should be absolutely certain before we—”

Beneath their feet, the floor began to vibrate slightly.

“Aah,” the Doctor said.  “Our victory celebration will have to be a bit short-lived, I’m afraid.”

“Doctor,” River said, “if you tell me there’s an automatic self-destruct, I really will kill you.”

“There’s an automatic self-destruct,” the Doctor said.  “The planet’s starting to break up.”

The tunnels around them began to shake.  Without another word, River and the Doctor bolted from the access portal, sprinting along the corridor, fighting to keep their footing as they ran, the light from their miner’s lamps bouncing with a weird, strobe-like effect.

“We’ll never make it!” River screamed.  “It took us more than an hour just to cross the lake!”  She and the Doctor burst into the cavern where the dead Silents lay.

“There’s another way out!” the Doctor shouted over the din of noise coming from the planet’s artificial core.

“Where?”

“They’re showing us—look!”  As they sprinted past the Silents’ corpses, River saw once again the two creatures that had been crawling across the cavern floor when they’d died.  They’d been facing away from the entrance to the access portal, toward the opposite cavern wall, and it was this wall that the Doctor was now scanning frantically with the sonic screwdriver.

There was a grating noise, and a section of the stone wall slid away.

“Is that a lift?” River gasped, her legs still churning.  Damn—why did the cavern have to be so _big_?

“Even better—a transmat module!”

“Oh, you genius!”

They were running so fast now they were almost parallel to the floor.  As one, they leaped into the transmat module, and the Doctor used the sonic screwdriver to activate the controls, River praying that the thing was still operational.  A moment later, they materialized on the planet’s surface, atop a rocky outcropping—the roof of the cave where Tremaine’s people had been camping.  In the distance, about a mile away, they could see the TARDIS, the size of a soup can from their vantage point.  The Doctor held up the sonic screwdriver, sending out an ear-piercing signal.  River watched the TARDIS begin to fade away.

“Come on, Sexy!” the Doctor shouted.

“It’s too far!” River screamed.

“Not for my girl, it isn’t!”

By now, the rumbling and shaking had engulfed the entire planet, boulders tumbling, rocky outcroppings collapsing down into valleys, everything churning together in a gritty cloud of pulverized rock.  Beneath her feet, the roof of the cavern collapsed, and River screamed, scrabbling wildly for purchase, but there was nothing to hold onto, and she began to fall—

—only to land with a thump on the glass floor of the console room.

“Yes!” the Doctor was shouting, triumphant, already racing to the controls.  “That’s my girl!  Now, get us out of here!”  He threw the lever, and the TARDIS began to dematerialize.  “Into orbit!”

A moment later, Gossan simply ripped apart, and the blast knocked River clear off her feet.  She went flying across the console room, cracked her head against a railing and slid to the floor, unconscious.

(iii)

“No, no no.”  The Doctor’s voice seemed to come from very far away.  “She’ll be fine.”

River managed to get one eye open.  She was staring up at three faces, all looming over her with comical expressions of concern.  The Doctor, Tremaine, and Marissa.

“Hello, Sweetie,” she smiled.  Then she winced.  “Ow.  How bad is it?”

The Doctor touched the top of her head, where River could feel a painful swelling, the size of an egg.  “Well, you’re going to have quite a lump there for a day or two, and perhaps some bruising, but other than that…”

“Right as rain,” River said.  Marissa slid an arm beneath River’s shoulders and helped her sit.  The console room spun alarmingly, but her head settled after a few moments.  Blinking to clear her vision, River asked, “Where are we?”

The Doctor gestured to the console.  “Come look.”

With Marissa’s aid, River went and checked the monitor.  Outside the ship, an array of rocks tumbled past, some tiny as gravel, some the size of small buildings.

“That’s Gossan,” the Doctor said, checking the coordinates.  “Well, what’s left of it.”

“It’s an asteroid belt now,” said River.

“Right,” the Doctor said, peering at the monitor.  “Brand-new coordinates and everything.  It’s—hello—what?”

River looked over his shoulder.  “What’s the matter?”

“That’s not right,” he frowned.  “Those are the coordinates of—aah.”  He looked abashed.

“Coordinates of what?” asked River.

“The Delirium Archive,” the Doctor said.  “See that huge piece, over there?  Several thousand years from now, the Delirium Archive will be built on the biggest piece of rock in the Gossan asteroid belt.”

“The museum?” said River.  “I’ve heard about it, but I’ve never been.”

The Doctor brushed his finger down the bridge of her nose.  “Twelve thousand years from now, that’s where the home box of the _Byzantium_ will be archived.”

“Oh!”  River laughed, despite her throbbing head.  “So, that’s where…”

“Amy and I will pick up your message,” the Doctor said.  Something else seemed to occur to him.  “Well, that’s poetic.”

River gave him a questioning look.

The Doctor glanced at Tremaine and Marissa, who so far had been watching the exchange with baffled expressions.  In an academic voice, the Doctor said, “The Delirium Archive is also famous as the final resting place of the Headless Monks.”

River absorbed the implications of this, but she said nothing, not knowing how much Tremaine and Marissa could be trusted.  She gave a brief nod and said, “I see.”

At last, Marissa spoke.  “What about us?” she asked.  “What happens now?”

“Oh, right,” the Doctor said.  He set some coordinates.  “Off to Symestine, as planned.  I trust you had a lovely rest while Dr. Song and I were exploring?”  The ship shuddered as he throw the materialization lever.

“Well, actually,” Tremaine began.

“Brilliant!  We’ll be there in a few seconds—you might want to fetch your things.”

(iv)

River had never been to Symestine, but it was a lovely planet with a good atmosphere.  The Moolotites had established their colony on a subtropical archipelago, and warm winds caressed River’s face as soon as she stepped outside the TARDIS.

“Lovely,” the Doctor pronounced, looking about.  Everywhere they turned grew palm-like trees, towering overhead.  The Moolotites had constructed their homes of dried reeds woven together, built in the shade of the tall trees.  A crowd of people had gathered, all clad in sleeveless tunics and knee-length trousers, staring with mouths agape at the blue box that had appeared out of nowhere.

Tremaine cleared his throat.  “My brothers and sisters—my name is Tremaine, and this is my daughter Marissa.  We’re refugees from Euclase, which we fled because of the religious persecution we faced there.  Once there were sixty of us, but our ship crash-landed on Gossan, and everyone on board perished.  Marissa and I are the only survivors.  These kind strangers agreed to bring us here to Symestine.”

A woman of middle years stepped forward.  “Brother and sister,” she said, embracing the two newcomers.  “Of course you’re welcome to stay with us here—I believe we have more than enough provisions for two extra people, and we’ll be honored to help you build your own home.”

“Thank you,” said Tremaine.  “And we’ll do our part in whatever tasks are required of us.”

The Moolotites insisted that River and the Doctor stay for their meal of freshly-caught seafood and tropical fruit.  River could see the Doctor would rather be away, but he consented graciously to share lunch with Tremaine’s and Marissa’s new community.  River herself fairly burst with questions for the Doctor, but she set them aside in the interests of good manners.  Besides, she was ravenous.

After the meal, the community elders took Tremaine and Marissa on a tour of their island home, River and the Doctor trailing behind, making small talk, though the Doctor was by now twitching with impatience.  At last the group circled back to the TARDIS, where Marissa threw impulsive arms around the Doctor, then River.

“Thank you so much,” she said.  “We owe you our lives.”

Tremaine, more dignified, shook the time travelers’ hands.

“Thank you,” he said.  “We’ll always grieve the loss of our people, but thanks to you, we at least know why they died.”

The female elder who’d first greeted them added, “Doctor, if ever there’s anything we can do for you, please feel free to ask.”

“Thank you,” the Doctor said.  “I hope that won’t be necessary.”  He made a courtly little bow.  “And now—Dr. Song and I really must be on our way.  Goodbye.”

Once the TARDIS doors were shut, he bolted to the console.  River waited until they were in the time vortex before she spoke.

“The Headless Monks,” she said.  “If that asteroid will be their final resting place, who put them there…?  Sweetie?”

The Doctor tapped the edge of the console with his fingertips and gave River an enigmatic smile.

“With no Papal Mainframe in control, the Headless Monks will have nothing to animate them,” River said, thinking out loud.  “They’ll collapse on the spot.  All of them.  At once.”

The Doctor said, “Quite a blow to the Silence, don’t you think?  Their most incorruptible, formidable warriors… kaput.”

“So the Silence will know Gossan’s been destroyed,” River went on.  “And they’ll know there’s only one person in the universe with the knowledge to do something like that, someone who also has the motive, someone who can go anywhere in time and space, and therefore has the opportunity.  By now, they’ll have realized you’re alive, Doctor.”

Unperturbed, the Doctor said, “Yes, obviously.”  If anything he seemed almost happy about this prospect.  “Which is why this is the perfect time to do something that’s twenty years overdue.”

“What’s that?” asked River.

The Doctor touched her nose.  “Clear your name.”

(v)

Before they left the TARDIS, the Doctor made a call from the console phone, tapping in what seemed like a hundred digits.

“Oi, it’s me.”  After a beat, he said, “Never mind how I know the security code.  Get him, now.”  The Doctor winked at River.  Then he said, “Yes, it’s me—no, it really is me.  I believe I have something that belongs to you.”  With one finger, he jabbed the console keyboard.  “I’m sending you some coordinates.  Meet me there.”

He set the receiver back in its cradle and offered an arm to River.  “Dr. Song?”

“Shouldn’t we change our clothes?” asked River.  They were both still wearing their grubby, sweat-stained khakis from the cavern exploration.

“No time,” the Doctor said.  “They’ll impound the TARDIS if we don’t show ourselves right away.”

Outside the ship they were greeted by a sextet of menacing Judoon troopers.  One aimed a gun at the Doctor and barked in its own language.  The Doctor responded in kind, a string of gibberish that sounded to River like “Jō hō kō pō thō dō rō pō.”  She stood listening, miffed that even she, a child of the TARDIS, couldn’t understand.  Judoonese was a “locked” language, impervious to telepathic translation systems.  To the best of River’s knowledge, only a full Time Lord, like the Doctor, could comprehend the Judoon’s harsh babble.

The Judoon captain touched the chest plate of his armor, and the conversation became comprehensible to River.

“You are dead,” the captain told the Doctor.  “Your death is confirmed fixed point—Earth, intergalactic time oh-seven-seven-slash-two-nine-oh-slash-beetle.”

“Rumors of my demise were greatly exaggerated,” the Doctor said grandly.

The captain turned to River, flashing a red light in her face.  “Species confirmed: human, showing trace Time Lord DNA.  Identity: Melody Pond.  Current status: imprisoned, Stormcage, for murder of the Doctor.  You are under arrest.”

“No, no, no, no, that’s why we’re here,” the Doctor said quickly.  “See, I’m not really dead.  She didn’t really kill me.  And I can explain it all, if I could just have a quick word with the Grand Assembly of the Shadow Proclamation.”

Before the captain could respond, a woman appeared in the corridor: tall, thin, ageless.  Her hair was white, her eyes pink, her skin almost translucent.  An albino.

“Doctor,” she said, astonished.  “This is—this is impossible.  How did you…?”  Her gaze settled on River, and she simply gawped, mouth moving in a wordless exclamation of shock.

Taking River’s hand, the Doctor strode forward, ignoring the bristling guns of the Judoon.

“I request an audience with the Grand Assembly of the Shadow Proclamation.  River Song is innocent.  She didn’t kill me.  I was never dead, and I can provide evidence of that.”

The albino woman regained her composure.  “Audiences with the Grand Assembly must be made by application, Doctor!  We have a full agenda—you can’t simply walk in here and—”

By now, word of the Doctor’s arrival had spread all over the base.  Two more black-robed albino women appeared, one of them quite old, wearing an elaborately embroidered mantle over her robe.  The long sleeves of the mantle, lined with purple silk, suggested she held a position of authority.  The albino women, River knew, were Shadow Architects—the sisterhood that oversaw the governance of the Shadow Proclamation.

“So, it’s true,” said the eldest woman.  “Doctor—this is remarkable, even by your standards.  We all believed you had died on Earth, in their year 2011.  We even held a day of mourning in your memory.”

“That was very touching of you,” the Doctor said.  “But this is a bit of an urgent matter, and it shouldn’t take long.”

The young woman who accompanied the elder leaned toward her superior and murmured quietly under her breath.

The eldest Architect shifted her gaze back to the Doctor.  “It seems there’s a Justice Department vehicle requesting permission to land.”

“At my request,” the Doctor said.  “They can provide the best proof of River’s innocence.”

The Architect who’d first greeted River and the Doctor frowned.  She said to the eldest woman, “Chancellor, this is highly irregular.”

The Chancellor of the Shadow Architects responded, “We have a brief recess on the agenda in a few minutes.  The Doctor can make his case then.”  She gestured to River and the Doctor.  “Come this way, please.”

River squeezed the Doctor’s hand, and they followed the Chancellor and her minions, the trio’s black robes fluttering.  Her heart pounded so hard she felt as though everyone on the base would be able to hear it.

(vi)

The assembly hall of the Shadow Proclamation was a vast amphitheater stretching so far overhead that River had to crane her neck to see the uppermost levels.  The seats were filled with a mind-blowing array of species, seemingly every race in the cosmos represented.

The Chancellor spoke through some unseen address system.  “Good beings of the Shadow Proclamation, I bring before you an unexpected but most urgent matter.  The last Time Lord, known as the Doctor, previously believed dead, is in fact alive.”

A quiet gasp, a palpable ripple of astonishment and disbelief, swept through the gathered assembly.

“The Doctor would like to request a pardon for the woman who allegedly murdered him: Melody Pond, also known as River Song.”

The Chancellor nodded, and the Doctor stepped forward.  He and River stood on a small platform at the base of the amphitheater, and if the Doctor felt diminished or intimidated, he gave no sign of it.

“Good beings,” he said, using the Shadow Architect’s term of address.  “I’m the Doctor, the last Time Lord of the planet Gallifrey.  Four hundred and twelve Earth years ago, I faked my death to escape murder at the hands of the order known as the Silence.”

More murmurs followed this, along with some loud remarks in angry voices.  River felt a current of sympathy emanating from the crowd; it seemed she wasn’t the only one who’d been wronged by that damnable cult.

“Melody Pond, the daughter of two good friends of mine, had been kidnapped as an infant and brainwashed by the Silence, trained and conditioned to be an assassin with one target—me.  She almost succeeded in killing me on Earth, in Berlin in the year 1938, but she was persuaded by her parents, Amelia and Rory Pond, to save my life instead.  Since then, she’s been one of my closest friends and most trusted allies.”

From the electric vibration running through the assembly, River knew the Doctor had the Shadow Proclamation squarely in his corner.

“Berlin was just a prologue of things to come, though.  I’d learned that River Song was going to kill me, very definitely, again on Earth, this time in Utah in the year 2011, a fixed point that couldn’t be altered.  So I borrowed a Teselecta from the Justice Department and used it to fake my death.  My friends were there to witness my assassination and burn what they believed was my body.  River was arrested by the Judoon, tried, found guilty, and sentenced to Stormcage for life.  She did this willingly to protect me, so that the Silence would think I was dead and no longer a threat to them.  But now I believe the time has come to have River Song’s name cleared.  I’ve come before the Grand Assembly to ask that she be granted a universal pardon.”

A wild buzz of conversation exploded as members of the assembly debated this remarkable request amongst themselves.  River was flabbergasted.  A universal pardon, which only the Shadow Proclamation could grant, didn’t mean the accused was innocent—it meant the crime had never been committed. 

The hubbub quieted, and a small creature on one of the lower levels called over the address system, “Doctor, can you provide proof of all this?”

“Irrefutable proof,” the Doctor responded.  He glanced over at the Chancellor, who nodded to one of her minions.

The doors to the assembly hall opened and in strode a man River had never seen before, but whose identity she guessed right away.  He was perhaps in his mid-forties, average height, thinning fair hair swept back off his forehead.  He wore an ordinary red space pilot’s uniform, with a gold emblem embroidered over the heart.  At a word from the Chancellor, he went and stood beside the Doctor on the platform.

Another member of the Grand Assembly addressed the newcomer.

“Please state your name and title or occupation.”

“My name is Captain Eugene Carter, and I’m pilot and commander of Justice Department Vehicle number 6018, also known as the Teselecta.”

“Have you met this man, the Doctor, before?”

“Yes, twice.  Once on Earth in their year 1938, and again on Calisto B in their year 5087.”

“And did you, on either of these occasions, allow the Doctor use of a Justice Department vehicle for his own ends—which I might remind you, is expressly prohibited?”

“Yes, I did loan him the Teselecta so he could avoid assassination by the Silence.  I also cleared the loan with my superiors.  We’d been investigating the Silence for some time, and as the Doctor is the last of his species and a known champion of justice, the loan of the vehicle was permitted.”

Another member of the Grand Assembly spoke up.  “Captain Carter, I was on the jury that convicted River Song of the Doctor’s murder.  The key piece of evidence was the Doctor’s body, which was discovered at the bottom of Lake Silencio in the province of Utah on Earth.  Dr. Song was also underwater, near the body, wearing a life support suit.  The Judoon arrested Dr. Song, and the Doctor’s body was brought here for examination.  The energy signature of the weapon that had killed the Doctor matched the weapon system in Dr. Song’s suit.  A tissue sample from the body matched the Doctor’s DNA.  And now we’re to believe this was all a sham, that Dr. Song in fact shot a machine?  You will pardon me for feeling that this account stretches the bounds of credulity.”

“Dr. Song did shoot a Justice Department vehicle,” Captain Carter said.  “The Teselecta can take any shape, any appearance, and its outer skin can be programmed so that even a tissue sample can match any DNA with one hundred percent accuracy.”

The assembly murmured.  Finally, a third member said, “I believe the Doctor’s body is in cold storage, here, on this base.  I viewed it before it was laid to rest.  But that body is your ship, your ‘Teselecta?’”

“Bring the body here, and I’ll show you.”

At a nod from the Chancellor, one of her minions slipped away.

While they were waiting, Carter offered a hand to River.  “We met in Berlin, but not face-to-face.”  He told the Doctor, “An interesting message came over our news feeds on the way here, Doctor.  It seems the planet Gossan has been destroyed.  At the same instant, every Headless Monk, everywhere, collapsed.  The Silence are said to be in a state of extreme disarray.  If you wanted to let them know you’re still alive, you couldn’t have sent a better calling card.”

River said, “Gossan was the computer that housed the Papal Mainframe.”

A swift look of comprehension crossed Carter’s face, and he whistled at the implications of Gossan’s destruction.  “We’ve been searching for the Mainframe for ages.  Good work.”

They became aware of a growing commotion outside the assembly hall.  The Chancellor was summoned, and when she returned, her face was hard, her mouth set into a grim, tight line.

“Good beings,” she said.  “A most unexpected development has arisen in connection to this case.  Our Judoon commander was found sending a message about the Doctor’s arrival to a person or persons unknown.  The message was deleted before it could be sent, and the commander is refusing to disclose the recipient of the message.  He’s in custody now.”

“The Silence had a mole here,” the Doctor said.  He seemed unsurprised and unconcerned.  “Dorium Maldovar told me the Silence had paid him for the cerebral cortex of a Judoon trooper, because they were looking for certain security software, information on how to imprison a Time Lord.  Your commander probably was the one who sold out that trooper to Dorium’s agents.”

River spoke up, giving the assembly her birth date in intergalactic time, and she added, “Check your records, and I’m sure there’ll be a Judoon death from some time in the preceding months.”

One of the Shadow Architects consulted a small handheld computer and confirmed, “Yes, about two months prior to your birth date, a very high-ranking Judoon officer died in a freak accident.  The circumstances of his death were considered suspicious, but nothing definitive was ever found.”

The Chancellor said, “We’ll deal with the traitor in due course.  In the meantime, Captain Carter, the Doctor’s body is available for examination.”

“Show me,” he said.

A sextet of young Shadow Architects wheeled into the assembly hall what appeared to be a black coffin mounted on a type of gurney.  The box was plain, only adorned by the Seal of Rassilon, in gold, on the lid.

One of the albino women handed the Chancellor a gold key, which she used to undo a series of locks around the outer edge of the coffin.

“My apologies,” she said to the assembly.  “This won’t be pleasant.”  And she raised the lid.

_Unpleasant_ wasn’t the word River would have used.  The thing inside the casket looked, for all the world, like a corpse that had been partially cremated and then immersed in water for several hours.  Bits of shriveled, leathery flesh still clung in places to the blackened skeleton.  The hair and clothes had been completely burned away.  The lower jaw gaped wide in a leering grin.  River had seen death in many, many guises during her lifetime, but it still distressed her to see this gruesome simulacrum of the mummified remains of the man she loved.

She noticed one thing right away, however: there was no smell of decaying or burned flesh, none whatsoever.  The Doctor had done an excellent job of programming the Teselecta to resemble his own burned corpse, but some things just couldn’t be faked.

The gurney was turned so that everyone present could get a better look.  Some of the Grand Assembly members averted their gaze.

Once everyone had had the opportunity to examine the purported remains, the Chancellor asked Captain Carter, “And this body is in fact a Justice Department vehicle?”

“Yes, it is.  Watch.”

He tapped some buttons in a remote control device on his wrist.  Without warning, the corpse in the coffin jerked up into a sitting position, its skeletal head bobbing alarmingly.  Several members of the Grand Assembly let out involuntary shrieks.

“My apologies,” said Carter, still tapping buttons.  The skeleton swung its legs over the edge of the coffin and dropped down to the floor, like an effect from an old Ray Harryhausen movie.  River found herself backing away out of pure reflex.

A moment later, the outer skin of the corpse began to change, millions of tiny panels shuffling outward and then inward again.  When the process ended, the corpse was gone, and in its place stood an android-like figure with smooth, silver skin, its face blank save for two round eyes that River could now see were portholes of some type.

The outer skin shifted again, and in a matter of seconds, the android had become a perfect replica of Captain Carter.  The entire Grand Assembly watched, riveted.

“So you see,” Captain Carter said, “the body retrieved from the bottom of Lake Silencio was this Teselecta.  The Doctor would have piloted the body like so.”

A ray of light shot out from the Teselecta’s eyes, miniaturizing Captain Carter and teleporting him into the machine.  It happened so quickly that the assembly members were on their feet, exclaiming in astonishment.

Now Carter spoke to the assembly through the Teselecta.  “So you see how easy it is for this vehicle to take any form, including that of a dead body.  Using the Teselecta, the Doctor was even able to effect a simulated regeneration.  Every aspect of his death appeared completely genuine, right down to the DNA in the outer tissues.”

The Doctor said, “I have reason to believe the Silence had sent witnesses to Lake Silencio to see that my execution was carried out, and they must also have alerted the Judoon, because within several hours of my friends’ departure from the lake, a Judoon ship landed.  River Song was retrieved from the lake and arrested, and my supposed body used as evidence at her trial.”

By now, the Doctor could barely be heard over the hubbub of the assembly, and the Chancellor called for quiet.

One of the Shadow Architects asked River, “Dr. Song, you pleaded guilty at your trial.  According to our records, you’ve been imprisoned in Stormcage for twenty years.  You accepted this sentence willingly, in order to protect the Doctor?”

“Yes, I did,” she smiled.

“If you’ll pardon my curiosity… why?”

“Because I love him.”

This revelation caused another uproar, and the Chancellor called for quiet once again.  She nodded to the front row of the assembly, and those beings rose and followed her to a secluded alcove at one side of the hall.  After a few minutes’ spirited debate, this council returned to their seats.  The Shadow Architect now addressed River and the Doctor.

“The story you present is fairly extraordinary, and although the testimony of Captain Carter seems to corroborate you, it would be taking a lot on faith to grant Dr. Song a universal pardon based on the evidence at hand.  My fellow councilors, however, would be satisfied if both of you would submit to one further test.”

“What test is that?” asked the Doctor.

“That both of you consent to being read by an Ood.”

River glanced at the Doctor, who told her, “Ood are telepathic.”

“Yes, I know that, Sweetie.”

“If Dr. Song consents to this, so will I,” the Doctor told the Chancellor.  He told River, “It won’t hurt.  Just relax and keep your mind open.  The only side effect is that you’ll remember everything—memories that the Silence wiped will come back, and some of them won’t be pleasant.  Is that all right?”

River nodded.  “The chance to be free _and_ whole?” she said.  “I can live with some unhappy memories for that.”  She told the Shadow Architect, “I consent to be read by an Ood, gladly.”

“Very good.”  The Chancellor signaled with her hand, and a dark-clad figure from an upper level rose to its feet and made its way to the floor.  Its head was oval, its eyes dark and set at an angle in its inscrutable face.  A mass of wiggly tentacles hung from its mouth.  In its left hand, it held something connected by a glistening white cord to its head, and when the creature drew closer, River saw that the thing in its hand was a small brain.  It looked at River, eyes blinking.

She tried not to be revolted.

“It’s all right,” the Doctor said.  “Just let it touch your hand.”

River wasn’t so reassured, but it was too late to back out now.  Squaring her shoulders, she held out her right hand.  The Ood placed its hand on hers, touching lightly.  River relaxed her mind, lowering her usual Time Lord defenses, allowing the Ood to see everything, something she’d never before permitted to anyone, not even the Doctor.

The sensation was peculiar, not a draining sensation or an intrusion, but a shuffling and reordering, much like the Teselecta changing its outer skin.  River could _see_ , in a sudden rush of clarity, so far back, to when she must have been no older than seven or eight months.  Incredible, that she could remember events all the way back into her infancy.  She could see Dr. Renfrew, she could see the Silents and the Clerics who’d raised and trained her, all supervised by Madame Kovarian, whose face hovered perpetually in the background, avaricious and gloating.  River could remember being taught one thing over and over and over: the Doctor was the enemy; he must die; she was the only one who could kill him.  That directive had been programmed into the very cells of her body until it was as much a part of her as the color of her eyes.

She saw her training in the Apollo suit, practicing first on stationery targets, then scurrying rats in the Florida sewers.  The purpose of the suit had been so that she could follow the Doctor anywhere, into any environment, surviving long periods of time without even needing food.  She saw Amy and Canton Delaware arriving at the orphanage; she saw her own escape; she saw her long journey to New York City on foot, where she’d first regenerated.  Shortly after that, the Silence had recaptured her and transported her to Leadworth in the early 1990s, where she could continue training and grow up near Amy and Rory, thereby gaining close proximity to the Doctor.

She saw her crazy youth in rural England, her journey to Berlin, her second regeneration.  There had been her convalescence with the Sisters of the Infinite Schism, then her enrollment at Luna University.  The day she’d received her doctorate, she’d been kidnapped again by the Silence and forced into the Apollo suit—this time, as a punishment for her second escape, for defying her orders, for saving the Doctor’s life in Berlin when she should have killed him.  The encounter at Lake Silencio had been as much about making River suffer as it had been about killing the Doctor.

Next, in swift succession, came her arrest, her trial, her imprisonment, the years of her sentence interspersed with her adventures with the Doctor: the Pandorica, the _Byzantium_ , all their escapades large and small, all her memories, every emotion from the profound to the insignificant: pain, ecstasy, humor, all the pieces of her life at last assembled in their proper order, in one cohesive strand of memory, stretching from infancy to the present instant.

River blinked, opening her eyes.  The process that she assumed had taken several hours had passed in a few fleeting moments.  She waited for the memories of the Silents to evaporate, but they remained in her mind with absolute clarity and permanence.

The Ood nodded and released her hand.  Then it turned to the Doctor.

He held out his hand and stood there, face serene, as the Ood read him.  River felt an envious jolt: that kind of communication, the flow of thought from one mind to another, was as natural for the Doctor as breathing.  She herself possessed a tiny fraction of that faculty, and she could only imagine what it must be like to exchange thoughts and dreams and visions so easily with another being, a true communion of souls.

After a moment, the Ood’s hand dropped.  The Doctor stepped away, and the Chancellor conferred telepathically with the Ood.  At last the Ood addressed the assembly, although River couldn’t see how it spoke.  Could it project its thoughts outside of itself, using only its mind?

“The Doctor and River Song speak the truth,” was all it said.

A great wave of excitement went through the crowd, a kind of thrill.

The Chancellor once again drew aside her council into their alcove.  When they reconvened with the main assembly, the Shadow Architect said, “You have heard the testimony of these witnesses and the verification of Ood Zeta.  The Council sees no reason not to propose that Dr. River Song be granted a universal pardon, since clearly the Doctor is alive and no crime has been committed.  You will now please vote.”

River could see the members of the Grand Assembly touching the screens of their handheld computers.  Her heart pounded and her mouth went suddenly dry.  Most of her prison sentence had been made tolerable by the freedom afforded her by the Doctor’s regular visits; since the acquisition of the vortex manipulator, she’d come to view her prison cell as little more than an apartment or dormitory room, a place to sleep and store her belongings.  It surprised her now how badly she wanted the assembly to vote in her favor, for her good name to be restored, for her to be viewed not as a criminal and murderer, but as a woman of courage and integrity.

The Chancellor kept a tally of the votes on her own computer, and after everyone had made their decisions, she conferred one last time with her Council.  At last, she turned to River with a smile.

“Congratulations,” she said.  “The Grand Assembly voted unanimously in favor of granting you a universal pardon.  A message will be sent to the commandant of Stormcage right away.”

Legs as weak as rubber, River could only say, “Thank you.  Thank you so very much.”

“You also should know that the Shadow Proclamation will be investigating the Silence on your behalf for its violations of intergalactic law.”

“Thank you,” River repeated.  “Although there are others who honestly have been harmed far more than me.”

The Doctor took River’s arm and helped steer her out of the assembly hall.  One of the young albino women brought River a tall glass of water, which she drank down in thirsty gulps.  The Doctor drew Captain Carter aside for a quick conversation in low voices.

“…hope I can count on you?” the Doctor was saying.

“Of course,” Captain Carter responded.  “All the resources of the Justice Department can be put at your disposal if need be.  Just send us word, and we’ll be there.”

“Good man.”  The Doctor clapped Carter on the shoulder and went to River’s side.

“Dr. Song?  How would you like to spend your first day of freedom?”

River smiled at him over the top of her water glass.

“That’s what I thought,” the Doctor responded.  “Captain Carter—it’s been lovely.  And now, I erm, I really must, erm, well, I guess you could say—”

“We have some celebrating to do,” River said.  “You know how it is.”

“I understand,” Carter smiled.  “Until the next time, Doctor, Dr. Song.”

River took the Doctor by the arm and muscled him back to the TARDIS before the Grand Assembly recessed and all the awkward questions began.

(vii)

River’s prison block buzzed with activity when the TARDIS materialized.  The commandant was waiting, along with a small platoon of guards.

“Dr. Song,” the commandant said, “we’ve received word from the Shadow Proclamation that you—”

“Yes, I was there.”  River used the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver to unlock her prison cell.  “It’s been lovely, but I really must collect my things and run.”

“You haven’t completed your release interview,” the commandant huffed.

In her cell, River began gathering up her small collection of possessions, loading them into her sturdy trunk.  “Let’s see,” she said as she worked.  “The linen service leaves something to be desired.  Don’t get me started on the food.  The showers have two levels: on and off—surely something could be done about that?  Oh, and the guards would be just darling if they wore fancy dress a few days each month.  There—does that cover everything?”

The commandant stood sputtering.  River scooted down, hefted the trunk, and threw it onto one shoulder.

“Ta,” she smiled, brushing past the phalanx of guards.  “Give Valeria my love, would you?  And tell her I’m sorry I won’t be able to finish cataloging the library.”

The Doctor was at the TARDIS console.  “It’s all over the news feeds,” he said.  “Your pardon.  In every galaxy.”  He gave River a meaningful look.  “Everyone knows,” he said simply.  “ _They_ know.”

“Good,” River said, setting down the trunk.  “I want them to be afraid.  I want them to know who’s coming for them.  I want them to spend their last days and weeks in fear.  The Papal Mainframe’s destroyed.  There’s no Headless Monks to give them an advantage.  It’s just the Silents and the Clerics, and they’re flesh and blood.  We know they can be killed.”

The Doctor nodded, eyes sad and resigned.  River took his hand.  “Whatever you need me to do, I’m here.  I promised you wouldn’t have to face them alone.  I keep my promises.”  She added, “And the playing field’s a bit more level now.  I remember the Silents.”

“You do?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said.  “Just like you.  But let’s keep that to ourselves, hmm?  It’s a hand best played close to the vest—there’s no telling what we might learn if the Silents assume we can’t remember them.”

The Doctor threw the lever on the console, sending the ship into the time vortex.  River closed her eyes for a moment, relishing the sensation of leaving Stormcage forever.  It was a giddy feeling, and not a little frightening: Stormcage had been River’s prison but also her refuge.  Now the Silence knew she was free, that the Doctor was alive, and surely they would guess the two of them had destroyed Gossan.  River knew that the order—Madame Kovarian in particular—would stop at nothing to defeat her and the Doctor, to destroy both of them utterly.

_Do your worst_ , River thought.  _I’m not that frightened little girl in the orphanage any more.  I’m a battle-hardened warrior, and I’ll blast down every Silent in the universe if I have to._

Studying the Doctor’s long hands and angular face, River decided battle could wait.  The virtual reality experience in the Papal Mainframe had left her feeling distinctly randy, the urges heightened by her giddy sense of triumph.  She wanted her husband—for real, this time.  She kissed the Doctor aggressively, pushing him up against the TARDIS console.  Some of the controls made a discordant noise of protest, and River laughed.

“Sexy’s feeling a bit left out,” she said.

“I think Sexy likes to live vicariously through you.”  The Doctor took River by the hand and led her up the stairs.  “Shower?” he asked.

“Eventually,” River smiled.

**To be continued…**


	6. Half-Sick of Shadows--Chapter Five

_Chapter Five_

When they finally got out of bed, River was famished.  She wasn’t sure how much time had passed—she was guessing it had been a day or longer since the lunch on Symestine.  In her rucksack she found a sports bar in a foil packet.  Munching the processed oats and almonds, she said, “Sweetie, we need to get some real food.  This won’t hold me for long.”

The Doctor adjusted his bow tie and tugged on one of his tweed jackets.  “What do you fancy?” he asked.

“Breakfast,” River said.  “Something lavish, with loads of bacon and Belgian waffles.”

“I know just the place.”  The Doctor combed his hair, making a face at all the silver, before tossing down the comb and striding out to the console room.

He materialized the TARDIS on Earth, alongside a diner whose scents caused River to salivate like Pavlov’s dogs.  The owner of the place knew the Doctor— “Can’t thank you enough for clearing up that little problem in the basement—” and said the food was on the house.  River ordered an enormous platter of everything that looked good: an omelet, bacon, fried potatoes, waffles, all of it washed down with cups of excellent coffee.  The Doctor had eggs, toast, and tea.

“Are you _dieting_?” River taunted.

“Well, you know how it is at my age,” he smiled, causing River’s toes to curl.

When they left, River said, “I need to go back to the University, let Professor Candy know I’m a free agent again.”

Luna University in the year 5150 had scarcely changed since River’s time as a student.  It occupied a large portion of Earth’s lunar base, secure beneath its glassy dome.  Since the thirty-first century, the moon had been colonized, nearly the entire satellite encased in climate- and gravity-controlled bubbles.  The domes were tinted to protect the colonists from the sun’s harshest rays, and through the glass, Earth could be glimpsed as a far-away blue-green crescent.

River dug out a key she’d been carrying for decades, zipped into an inner pocket of her clothes, wherever she went.

“Here,” she told the Doctor.  “My flat is five streets east of here, in a block—”

“I’ve been there,” he said.

River stared for a beat, then remembered a couple of centuries had passed for him since the last time she’d seen him—years during which they’d had adventures together, events River had yet to experience.  Eventually, River knew, she’d see him again when he was younger, and she’d need to keep the momentous past few days from him.  Secrets and spoilers—nothing ever really changed.

The administration buildings had been modeled after the grand universities of Earth, the architecture a bizarre mashup of medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, and Victorian.  Pebbled pathways connected the buildings.  Each moon settlement or station was small enough to traverse on foot, so there were no vehicles.  Travel between settlements was done primarily by transmat modules.  Trees, planted in the artificial soil, proliferated, lending a warm, humid atmosphere that permitted the wearing of lightweight clothes.  Birds, tiny descendants of breeding pairs brought from Earth, sang and called in the leafy canopy.

River didn’t recognize any of the students—they were all so young!—and none of them gave her a second glance.  She strode into the building that housed Anthropology and Archeology, tracing the familiar path to Professor Candy’s office.  En route, she stopped in the vast fifth-floor library, formerly her favorite haunt, and found the alcove where she’d been working when Madame Kovarian had abducted her.  Pale daylight filled the small space, but otherwise, it was unchanged.  River expected to have a stronger emotional reaction—anguish or rage or despair—but she felt very little.  It was only a room, after all.  River traced her fingertips along the back of a chair before leaving to find Professor Candy.

His booming, authoritative voice announced his presence from all the way down the corridor.  He was in seminar with the advanced archeology doctoral candidates, some of whose theses River had edited.  The pudgy young man who sat feverishly typing notes into a handheld computer—that would be the one who’d stepped on the fossil.  River could tell by the hunch of his shoulders, his faint air of desperation.  The shrewish young woman with the bored expression and shifty gaze—that would be the one who’d had too free a hand with her data analysis.

When Professor Candy spotted River standing in the doorway, he stopped in mid-sentence, speechless for perhaps the first time in his life.  Then he was on his feet, bellowing with inarticulate happiness as he swept her into his arms.  River embraced him gently—he wasn’t young, after all.

“Free at last!” Professor Candy exulted.  “We heard the good news—a universal pardon!  I knew that trial was a sham!  Lady Candy has already been over to freshen your apartment, take the sheets off the furniture, put in some provisions—your timing is excellent; a freighter from Earth just made a delivery of foodstuffs.  Lady Candy insists you join us for dinner as soon as you’re able.”

“Thank you,” River said, laughing at his voluble welcome, but touched nevertheless.

Professor Candy turned to his students.  “Ladies and gentlemen, this is Dr. River Song, my protégée—wrongly convicted of murder, but now pardoned by the Shadow Proclamation and blessedly free, among us once again.”

“Hello,” River smiled.

The students applauded, one of the younger women even jumping up to shake River’s hand.

“We’ve heard so much about you,” the student gushed.  “You’re a legend in the department.  All the tutors and instructors and professors tell the most wonderful stories about you.”

“I’ll bet they do,” River said, thinking of the staff she’d bedded during her student days—too many to count.  She told Professor Candy, “I’ll catch you up later.”

She took her time walking to her apartment, strolling along the pebbled avenues, sniffing the scent of flowers planted in neat beds and borders. Luna University, secure within its bubble of artificial atmosphere, had been the first place River had known true freedom, freedom from the Silence, from the incessant conditioning and training.  It was during her university years that she’d begun researching the Doctor, reading everything about him she could find, although now she knew those accounts couldn’t begin to convey even a fragment of his true nature.  Certainly those stories couldn’t impart to the reader the sheer giddy joy of traveling with him, the wonder of seeing the universe across all of time.  But it had been through those tales—myths and legends—as well as Amelia’s childhood stories and games—that River had fallen in love with him.

Later, River learned that her freedom had been an illusion.  The Silence had always known where she was—when she’d escaped the orphanage, when she’d failed to return to Leadworth after Berlin—they’d followed her, biding their time, allowing her to grow complacent before snapping shut the jaws of their trap yet again.  Probably they’d been keeping tabs on her in Stormcage as well.  River would only be free of them when the order was not only destroyed but completely discredited, all their evil and crimes exposed.

Her apartment was in a block of red brick buildings, designed to look like fashionable old neighborhoods from Earth cities.  Each building stood four stories high, ornamented with bay windows and decorative brick embellishments.  River’s flat was on the third floor.  The front windows overlooked the street; the rear windows overlooked a small garden.  For the past twenty years, Professor and Lady Candy had been maintaining the place, paying the rent, unshakable in their conviction of River’s innocence and their confidence in her eventual return.

The door to her flat stood slightly ajar.  River felt a prickle of apprehension, and she cursed herself for sending the Doctor back here alone—it would be the first place the Silence would look for him, for her.  Without making a noise, River unshouldered her rucksack and drew out her blaster, switching off the safety.  She nudged open the door with her foot, entering the flat, spinning in blindingly fast circles, keeping her body low as she scanned every corner.

“You can put the gun down,” a voice teased.

River exhaled, walking through the front parlor to the kitchen.  “Sweetie, you should be more careful—it’s not safe here—”  She stopped short.  Red and white and purple balloons floated up near the ceiling, plates had been set out on the table, along with a pot of tea in a knitted cozy.  The Doctor sat at the table, grinning widely.

“Welcome home!” a familiar voice called.  Amy emerged from the bedroom, a giftwrapped box in her hands.

“Mother!”  River circled the table to embrace Amy.  “Mhhmm, you smell wonderful—is that a new scent?”

“It’s last year’s,” Amy said.  She handed the box to River.  “This is new—it’s yours.”

River tore off the gold foil wrap.  The posh red box bore a G-clef embossed in gold, and beneath it, in an elegant swirling scroll, was the word

MELODY

and beneath it, in a smaller font

_The song of your heart_.

“Oh, I love it!” River gushed.  “This is so clever!”

“I hope you like the scent,” said Amy, sounding nervous.  “That’s a prototype—we’re rolling out the new line next fall.”

River opened the box and shrieked with delight.  The perfume bottle had been designed to resemble one of River’s infamous shoes—spike-heeled, the exact same shade of fuck-me red.  She didn’t miss the Doctor’s shift in posture, the slight change in his breathing.

River removed the cap and sprayed a fine mist onto each wrist.  The scent was both floral and spicy, with faint notes of roses and jasmine, beneath which lurked a hint of vanilla musk.  The perfume was distinctly different from Petrichor, Amy’s signature scent, which no less an authority than _Vogue_ had called “Chanel No. 5 for the twenty-first century.”

“Mmmm,” said River, inhaling deeply.  “Well, my life is complete now—I’ve had a perfume named for me.”  She glanced up, startled to see a momentary expression of grief and dismay on the Doctor’s face, as if the scent had caused him to recall some unbearable sadness.

“Sweetie?” she said.  “If you don’t like it, I can wash it off.”

“No,” he said, perhaps too quickly.  He forced a smile.  “It suits you.”

“You clever beast,” she told him.  “Did you go all the way back to Earth to bring Mum and Dad here to surprise me?”

“Your release from prison needs a celebration,” Amy said.  “It’s a family event.”

“So, where’s Daddy?”

“Right here,” a voice called from the bedroom, where River guessed the Doctor had parked the TARDIS.  “Someone needed a fresh nappy to be socially acceptable.”

Rory emerged, and River’s jaw dropped.  Her father carried in his arms an infant clad in a bright purple romper suit.

“Oh, my God!” River said.  She began laughing.  “Girl or boy?”

“Boy,” Amy and Rory chorused.

“I have a brother?”  River couldn’t stop laughing.  “Brian?”

Amy said, “His name is Robert James.  We call him Robbie.”

“Want to hold him?” asked Rory.

“I’d love to.”  River took the baby, a surprisingly substantial weight.  “He’s a big boy.”

With a grimace, Amy said, “Yeah, it was loads of fun pushing him out.”

Rory kissed her cheek.  “At least I was there with you this time.”

River cuddled the infant boy, who was blinking up at her, halfway between asleep and awake.  “What age is he?”

“Four months,” said Rory.

“How’d he cope with his first trip in the TARDIS?” asked River.

“His first and last trip,” Rory corrected.  Amy shot him a look, so Rory added, “For a while, anyway.”

“He’s a natural,” Amy beamed.  “Eyes wide open the whole time, didn’t cry or even fuss at all the racket.”  She cooed to the baby, “Aren’t you my good boy?”

River laughed.  Robbie was too baby-faced right now to get a real sense of how he’d look as an adult, but his eyes were the clear gray of rain clouds, his hair a downy-soft cap of apricot-colored fuzz.  He appeared to have no eyebrows, which gave his face a solemn, egg-like appearance.

“He’s going to be ginger,” River said.  She glanced over at the Doctor, who looked happy for his friends, but his smile couldn’t dispel the melancholy in his eyes.  “How does it feel to have a brother-in-law?”

“Brother-in-law?” he huffed.  “Bit of a mouthful for someone still in nappies.”

“Well, I’m your wife and Robbie’s my brother… that makes him your brother-in-law.”

“Let’s get one thing straight.”  Rory pointed an index finger at the Doctor’s chest.  “You are _not_ taking him out for his stag do.  Got it?”

“Got it,” the Doctor said.  “No trips in the TARDIS for Robbie… without express parental permission, naturally.”

“So is this it for you?” River asked her parents.  “Two children?  Or haven’t you decided yet?”

Amy and Rory glanced at each other.

“Not just yet,” Amy said.  “I’m still nursing Robbie, and I’d like him out of nappies before we have another one.”

Rory said, “We always talked about having two kids, but… you know.”

“Two kids you actually raise yourselves,” River finished.

“Yeah,” said Rory.  “Not that I’m blaming you for… for, you know.”

“It’s all right,” River said, keeping her voice sympathetic.  The atmosphere in the room had become strained and uncomfortable, so she turned her attention to the table.  “What’s all this, then?”

Amy brightened as she uncovered a three tier tea tray.  River recognized it from her parents’ home on Earth—how strange to see it here, on this moon colony in the far future.  Amy had provided sandwiches, scones, and sweets, along with a pot of steaming hot tea.  After the large breakfast, River wasn’t remotely hungry, but she sat and ate anyway.  The Doctor drank only one cup of tea and nibbled on the edge of a scone.  River couldn’t get past how mournful he appeared.  Was it the sadness of seeing Amy and Rory with their family, knowing his own was lost and he’d likely never have another one?  Or the lingering grief and guilt at his failure to rescue River from the Silence when she’d been an infant?

“So, what now?” Rory asked River.  The food had been consumed, and Amy was pouring second and third cups of tea.  “Are you going to get a proper job, or what?”

River said, “I can’t stay here for long.  This is the first place the Silence will come looking for me.”  She told Amy and Rory about the destruction of Gossan and the Papal Mainframe.  Amy pumped her fist and yelled, “Yeah!” when River told her the Silence had completely lost the Headless Monks, their most incorruptible warriors.

“Can they all be wiped out now?” Amy asked, leaning across the table in her eagerness.  “The Silents—Madame Kovarian—the Clerics—what about that lot?”

“Bit bloodthirsty there, aren’t you?” asked Rory.

Amy said, “I have a score to settle with them.”

The Doctor said, “There’s going to be a battle.  I know where, I’m just not sure when.  But it’s coming soon.”  He glanced around the table.  “I’ll need as much help as possible.  People I can trust.”

“We’ll be there,” said Amy.  “Just come get us.”

But Rory was shaking his head.

“No,” he said.  “No way.”  He shifted Robbie onto his shoulder; the tyke was almost asleep now.  “I don’t want the Silence coming after another one of my kids.”  His gaze settled on River, eyes full of aching sadness.  “I never got to hold you when you were a baby, not even once.  I lost out on everything—all those years.  You’ve been a great friend, really brilliant, but it’s different from raising a kid yourself.  Amy and I missed everything—all the milestones, the birthdays, the holidays.”  He shook his head.  “I’m not going through that again.  I held it together the first time because I had to, but if that ever happened again…”  His shoulders rose and fell.  “It would kill me.”

River exhaled.  She hadn’t realized, until this moment, how much it had hurt Rory to lose his firstborn.  He hadn’t been there for Amy’s pregnancy or the birth of the baby.  He’d missed watching his daughter grow up.  True, they’d been childhood chums, but Mels had been Amy’s friend, much more than Rory’s.  Anyway, a childhood friend, or an adult friend you saw from time to time, was very different from a child you’d raised yourself.  No matter how many more children Amy and Rory had, it would never fill that gaping chasm in their lives.  The wound wouldn’t really heal—time would just make it more bearable.

“All right,” the Doctor said simply.

Amy turned to Rory, her face twisted into a scowl, but at a look from him, she clamped her mouth shut, slumping a bit in her seat and saying nothing.  Rory had asked for so little in their relationship, wanting only her love, but on this one thing, Amy would not go against his wishes.  Her gaze lingered on Robbie, now sound asleep with his thumb in his mouth, and her expression softened.

“Yeah,” she said.  She told the Doctor, “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” he said.  River knew he would never force a friend to fight for him, especially not the Ponds, who’d already suffered so much on his behalf.

“Good luck,” Rory said awkwardly.  “I mean, you know—whenever.”

“Yeah,” said Amy, her voice toneless.  “Kill them a lot.”

There didn’t seem much to say after that.  Amy gathered up her tea set.  Rory went ahead of her into the TARDIS with Robbie.  The Doctor followed.

“Be right back,” he told River.  “Just need to get them home.”

“Don’t be too long,” River said.  They still had much to discuss.

He went inside.  Amy said quietly to River, “I’m so sorry.  It’s just—Rory—I can’t—”

“I completely understand,” River said.  “The Doctor doesn’t expect you to put your family in danger, especially after all you’ve been through.”

Amy said, “I wish I could be there.  I want to fight them.  God help me, I want to look Madame Kovarian in the eyes when she’s dying and know I got the better of her.”

“I will,” River promised.  “I’ll do it for you, Mother, I swear it.”

“Thank you.”

River asked, “Want me to bring you her head on a spike?”

Amy barked a short, toneless laugh.  “No… just her eye drive.”

“Consider it done,” River smiled.  “It’ll make a nice key chain.”

They hugged, and Amy slipped inside the TARDIS.  A few moments later, the sounds of dematerialization began, and River stepped back, watching the box fade from view.  She wondered if that would be Amy and Rory’s last trip in the time machine, and if they would spend the rest of their years in Leadworth, thinking about the Doctor and all the adventures—the good, the bad, the horrific—they’d shared with him.

(ii)

The Doctor had put River’s trunk and bags in her bedroom, so she began to unpack, sorting through her things.  Even though she likely wouldn’t be staying here for long, she didn’t think it would hurt to set up the flat as a decoy of sorts—perhaps she could mislead the Silence into thinking she was settling back into her life at the University.

She checked the setting on her blaster, then buckled the leather utility belt about her waist, holstering the weapon in its familiar place on her right hip.  She looked over the vortex manipulator, running a quick diagnostics test to be sure it was functioning properly, and fastened the device around her left wrist.  She didn’t want ever to be taken unawares again, especially not now, with war coming.  She re-packed her rucksack with a couple of sets of clean clothes.  She wondered what the Doctor was planning, how much he’d learned about the Silence during the past couple of centuries.

She was tidying up the kitchen when a high-pitched whine announced the immanent arrival of the TARDIS.  The ship materialized in the center of the kitchen, and a moment later, the door opened and the Doctor popped out.

“Cab for Dr. Song,” he called out.  “Get your coat—there’s a Haxalian uprising on Cep Cassalon, and the Policy Hive is at sixes and sevens…”  He trailed off, flummoxed by River’s expression.  “What?  What happened?”

“You’re _young_ ,” said River, staring.

The Doctor adjusted his bow tie.  “I’m 1286,” he huffed.  He wore a tweed jacket that River had not seen before, one with flecks of black, white, and rust in the weave.  A white shirt and a bronze-colored bow tie complimented the tweed.  His trousers and shoes were black.  He was clean-shaven, his hair cut short and showing not a trace of silver.

His gaze made a circuit of the kitchen, taking everything in with one swift glance.  “What’s this?  Why aren’t you in Stormcage?”

“Spoilers,” River said.

He scrutinized her face.  “What age are you?”

“Spoilers,” River repeated.  “You need to leave, Sweetie.”

Hurt and indignant, he asked, “What?  Why?”

“Because your future self is on his way here, and you don’t want to cross your own time stream.”

He was looking out the window, squinting.  “Artificial atmosphere.”  Tilting his head almost down to his shoulder, he said, “I can see Earth… we’re on a moon base… which for you means Luna University.  Why are you back here?”

“You really need to go,” River said.

“When’d you leave prison?  Were you pardoned, or did you just break out again?”

“You know I can’t answer those questions,” River said.  “That’s still to come for you.  But I can tell you this much—you’ll know when it’s time.  It will start with scones.  Currant scones.”

“Scones?” he said.  “What kind of rubbish hint is that?”

River laughed, pushing him back into the TARDIS.  “You’ll find out,” she said.  “Now, shoo—or your older self will give you a scolding, and you know how insufferable you always find yourself.”

He jabbed a finger in River’s direction before he departed.  “This had better be worth it,” he said.  “I’m quite miffed, you know.”

“It will be worth it,” River smiled, “I promise.”  She pulled the TARDIS door shut.  A moment later, the ship departed in a loud grinding, thumping chorus, fading out to a high-pitched whine.

She was sitting on her sofa reading doctoral manuscripts when the ship re-appeared.  River set aside her reading material, and when the Doctor emerged, she was relieved to see it was his older, silver-haired self.  Seeing him at two different points in his time stream, in such rapid succession, made River more keenly aware of how old he’d grown.

“Pond family, safely delivered home,” he announced.

“No unexpected detours en route?” River asked.

“As dull as it gets.”

“Should I get my bag?” she asked.  “Do you want me to come with you now?”

He grinned, opening the TARDIS door a bit wider.  River went into the bedroom to fetch her rucksack.  She left the dissertation manuscripts in her sitting room, her pen casually tossed down, as if she’d stepped out and would be returning at any moment.  She checked the computer that controlled the automatic lights, which would switch on and off depending on the time of day.  Thanks to Lady Candy, there was food in the fridge and pantry.  A damp tea towel dried on a small rack by the sink.  River’s bags and trunk were still in her bedroom, her clothing scattered about; her doctoral robe hung on a hanger from a hook over the cupboard door.  The façade might not fool the Silence for long, but with luck, it would throw them off her scent for a while.

Once inside the TARDIS, she said, “You can’t blame Amy and Rory, Doctor.  They have a baby to look after, now.”

He fussed with a few controls, saying nothing.  She knew how disappointed he must be, that his wife’s parents, who had more reason than anyone to want the Silence brought down, would not be at his side for the final battle.

“Tell me what you know,” River said after a beat.  “Are you going to try to raise another army?”

“That didn’t work out so well the last time.”  He didn’t look at River as he spoke.

“No, but you’re going to need friends,” River said.  “And really, if you’re going to strike, it should be soon—the Silence might be in disarray now, but they’ll regroup quickly, especially if they think you’re gunning for them.”

The Doctor didn’t answer.  Instead, he circled around the console and drew River into his arms, treating her to a long, hungry kiss.

“Sweetie?” River said.  “We need to talk about this.  The Silence won’t rest until they—mff.”  Her words were lost in the next bout of epic liplock.

“All right,” she said.  “Is this your plan—just shag until they—mmm.”  River made no further protests.  The Doctor locked the TARDIS controls, which would keep the ship in the time vortex indefinitely.  Then he took River’s hand, leading her up the stairs to their bedroom.

(iii)

He wanted the works this time, and River saw no reason not to indulge him.  She changed into her black corset, the one with the red stitching, black silk thigh-high stockings, a wispy black silk thong, and her red shoes.  She coated her lips with the hallucinogenic lipstick and gave her hair an extra toss before emerging into the bedroom, where the Doctor was already completely naked, lying with an expectant look.  He swallowed hard when River held out the handcuffs, then lowered his gaze.  She well recognized that look, which told her, “Do with me as you will.”

She handcuffed him to the brass headboard, his body drawn long and taut.  River ran her fingertips down the insides of his arms, across the ridges of his pectoral muscles, and down to his ribs.  Then she leaned down and kissed his nipples, smearing each hard point with her lipstick.

It took only a few seconds for the drug to cross into the bloodstream, and the Doctor arched his back, groaning in evident delight at the visions that crossed through his mind’s eye.

River laughed, caressing his chest.  “Like that, do you?”  He continued making happy, inarticulate noises as River used her hands and mouth on him, leaving not an inch of skin unattended to.  When he was covered with red lip-prints, River straddled his hips, guiding his hard shaft of flesh inside herself, sighing as she sank down.

She watched his face as she rode him, listening to his moans of delight.  By now, enough of the drug was in his system to render him gibbering and delirious.  River timed her movements expertly, pleasuring herself as well as him, like a courtesan using all her skills to gratify a king.  At the end, he threw back his head, shouting something in his own language that not even River could understand.  Her own release followed immediately after, waves of throbbing, gushing, wetness.  He lay panting for a while, still lost in the netherworld of erotic delight.  The drug’s hallucinogenic effect began to lessen, and he slept.  River unlocked the cuffs and lay down beside him, slipping into effortless slumber.

(iv)

When she awoke, the Doctor was still asleep, an odd thing.  Normally he would awaken as soon as the drug wore off.  River frowned, studying his sleeping face.  His chest rose and fell in a regular rhythm, but she couldn’t dispel a sense that something was off-kilter with him.  In an effort to distract herself, she went down the corridor to the elaborate TARDIS baths and filled the sunken marble tub with hot water.  While she bathed, she ruminated.

Their recent bouts of passion weren’t that unusual.  The Doctor, as far as River knew, tended to go through long stretches of celibacy, centuries at a time, interspersed with brief periods of intense sexual activity.  Even in the context of their marriage, he almost never initiated sex.  River could count on the fingers of one hand the times when she hadn’t been the one to make the first move.  That didn’t bother her—in addition to his shyness, he was submissive in the extreme, a tendency that Time Lord culture probably had done nothing to diminish.

Quite possibly, the greatest battle of his life—or one of the greatest—loomed on the horizon, staring him in the face… and his response to the threat was to hide the ship in the time vortex, make love to his wife, and sleep.  River kept thinking about his face, his eyes, the way he’d been _looking_ at her all during this adventure… and the way he’d looked at Amy and Rory.  River was used to his sadness, but he’d gazed at all three of them as if he were mentally saying farewell.

On a sudden impulse, River hopped out of the tub, wrapped herself in a thick, terrycloth dressing gown, and slid her feet into a pair of cork-soled sandals.  From the baths she followed the corridors out toward the console room, swinging into the medical room.  No matter the configuration of the TARDIS rooms, the medical area was always the first room on the right off the console room.  River stood in the center of the room, turning in slow circles, not really sure what she was looking for.  A microscope on a far counter caught her eye: nearby lay a glass slide, three bottles of chemical stains, alcohol wipes, and a sterile lancet.  The tiny trace of blood on the lancet was brown and dry.  The alcohol wipes were similarly desiccated.  Heart pounding, River switched on the microscope and placed the glass slide beneath the lens.

(v)

She sat reading beside their bed, still wrapped in the terry dressing gown, until he awoke.  He sat up, blinking, as if trying to get himself oriented.  River knew how difficult this must be for him; he normally never experienced grogginess.

“Hello, Sweetie,” she said.

He studied her expression for a moment, then said, “You know.”  It was a statement, not a question.

River reached into a pocket of her dressing gown and, without saying anything, held up the glass slide.

The Doctor’s face fell.  “Aah,” he said.

“Even in the TARDIS, you should always destroy anything that has your blood on it,” River chided.  “You know perfectly well what could happen if it fell into the wrong hands.”

He didn’t answer, so River said, “Were you too distracted to bother?”

“Something like that,” he shrugged.

“How long have you known?”

“A while,” he said.

“What symptoms tipped you off?” asked River.  “I assume you didn’t run a blood test because you had nothing better to do.”

“You haven’t guessed that one?” asked the Doctor.  “Pretty obvious, isn’t it?”

At first River thought he must mean all the sex, but then she said, “You’ve been sleeping.”

“A bit humiliating,” the Doctor said, “needing to kip, like, like a _human_.”

River cut straight to the brutal chase.  “How much time do you have?”

“A few years.  Maybe.  I’ll keep getting weaker and weaker until regeneration kicks in.  The illness tends to be most common in older Time Lord bodies.  It happened to me once before.”

“Did you die from it?” asked River.

“No, I fell from the Pharos Project telescope.”  He said this with such cool dispassion that it might have happened to someone else.  River had seen photos of the Pharos Project telescope, which had been built as tall as a good-sized skyscraper.  She tried to imagine falling from that height, and she shuddered.  But that would be like the Doctor—he would charge out to meet death head-first, not wait meekly for it to carry him into that good night.

“This is why you’re poking the beast, isn’t it?” she asked.  “You want to go into battle with the Silence, so you can die and get it over with quickly, rather than face months or even years of debilitating weakness.”

“Not really my style.”  The Doctor scowled, glaring at the walls of the room.  “Wasting away in bed while everyone wrings their hands around me.”

“But you want me with you for the battle,” River said.

“Naturally,” he answered.  “You’re my wife.  There’s no-one I trust more.”  He added, “I’m sorry.”

“I’ll be there,” River said.  “For better or for worse, remember?”

As if quoting something, he said, “‘On the Fields of Trenzalore, at the fall of the Eleventh, when no living creature can speak falsely or fail to answer, a question will be asked.’  Silence will fall when that question is answered.”

“What question?” asked River, bewildered.  “Who told you this?”

“Dorium Maldovar, but he heard about it—through unsavory channels, I’m sure—from the Ood.  It’s an Ood prophecy, River.  About me.  My death.  The Ood are never wrong about things like this.  The fall of the Eleventh—that’s me.  This is my eleventh body.”

“The Fields of Trenzalore,” River said to herself.  “I know I’ve heard about it somewhere …”  She jolted.  “Professor Candy’s doctoral advisor worked on a dig there when she was very young—the site of a battle where thousands died—”  River stopped short, a kind of horror dawning over her.  “Her team excavated a site known as the Great Sepulcher—it was supposed to have been the tomb of the most feared warrior in…”  She faltered, unable to continue.

“The most feared warrior?” the Doctor said dryly.  “I should be flattered.”

“I probably shouldn’t have told you that,” River said, stricken.  “According to Professor Candy, the tomb was empty.  Now, there’s a spoiler for you.”

“It hardly matters now,” the Doctor said.

“Do you know what the question is?” asked River.

“‘Doctor Who?’” he said.

“‘Doctor Who?’” River repeated.  “Seriously?  It’s about you?”  She blinked.  “Oh, God—it _is_ about you.  ‘The Doctor who defeats the Silence.’”

The Doctor said, “You can see why the Silence are so keen that the question is never answered.  So keen, in fact, they kidnapped you and trained you to assassinate me to keep me from ever reaching Trenzalore.”

“‘Silence will fall when the question is answered,’” River said.  “ _They’ll_ fall.  The Silence.  The end of them—the fall of the order.”

“Exactly,” he said.

“Their fall—or, more aptly, _downfall_ —is tied up with your death, somehow.”  River tried without success to fight a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.

“Didn’t you ever wonder why they went to such lengths to have you kill me?” the Doctor asked.  “They could have hired any old assassin for that.  But they kidnapped the daughter of two of my best friends and tried to brainwash her into pulling the trigger.  Why?”

River said, “To gain proximity to their target.  You’re not an easy person to peg down, Sweetie.  Later, it would look as though your wife or lover had done you in—not such an unusual thing, especially for humans.  A lot of people are betrayed by the ones they love most.”

“And Utah,” the Doctor said.  “According to Dorium, a still point in time—an easier place to create a fixed point.”

“An artificially created fixed point!”  River felt like smacking herself in the head for not realizing this sooner.  “No wonder you could wiggle out of it with the Tesalecta.”

“The Silence piled up layers and layers of contrivance,” the Doctor said.  “Crossing timestreams so many times, until the events of your life looked like a cat’s cradle.  As if the Silence were trying to confuse Time itself.”  He looked so old and sad, River thought, weary beyond imagination.  “You know, I came so close to going to that lake and letting you kill me.  It seemed inevitable.  And then I realized there was a way out of it, that it wasn’t a naturally occurring fixed point at all.  It was a fixed point created with elaborate and bizarre choreography—all to avoid having me reach Trenzalore.”

“It must mean the end for them, otherwise, why would they be so desperate?” River asked, thinking out loud.  “They went through a ridiculous amount of effort, if you think about it.  And why Amy and Rory?  Did the Silence have something against them, to want to hurt them so badly?”

“They’ve been my only married companions,” the Doctor said.  “The only ones who might conceive a child in the time vortex.  And it takes a special brand of cruelty to kidnap a pregnant woman, force her to give birth in captivity, and take the baby away from her as soon as it’s born.  So they put Madame Kovarian on the job, a sadist through and through.  She’d not only do her job, she’d enjoy every moment of it.”

“But now they must realize she failed,” River said.  “You’re not dead.  I’m free.  And we destroyed the Papal Mainframe.  Because of her mistake.”

“Doesn’t look too good for her career mobility, does it?” the Doctor said.  He shifted in the bed.  “And all that was Plan B.”

“What was Plan A?” asked River, wondering if she’d missed something.

“The Pandorica,” the Doctor said.  “I’d be imprisoned for eternity.  The TARDIS would be destroyed on Amy and Rory’s wedding day.  You’d die in the explosion.  The Silence just didn’t count on wiping out themselves in the process.  When the universe was rebooted, they came back along with everything else, and Trenzalore is still waiting for them.  They had to find another way to prevent me getting there. Lake Silencio was their Plan B.”

“I heard a voice,” River remembered.  “In the TARDIS, when I went back to Amy’s house and realized the Nestenes had been there.  It said, ‘Silence will fall.’  It wasn’t Madame Kovarian speaking, though—it was a man’s voice.”

“Yes,” the Doctor said.

“Do you know who it was?”

“Still working on that one.”

River went and sat on the edge of the bed, facing the Doctor.  She took one of his hands in hers.  It was cold—shockingly cold.

“Will you regenerate?” she asked, “at the fall of the Eleventh?  Will there be a Twelfth?”

“I don’t know,” the Doctor said.  “I don’t _want_ to know—too much foreknowledge is a dangerous thing.”  He squeezed her fingers.  “But whatever happens, I need someone there who can—you know.”

She kissed his hand.  “Whatever you need, Sweetie.”  Whether she buried him, or helped his newly-regenerated self stagger into the TARDIS, River would be there for him.  She steeled herself to the task, although something inside her wailed at the though of losing him.  But she’d known when she married him that this day might eventually come.  The only way to avoid it was if she died first.  In her bleakest moments, River sometimes thought that would be easier.

“I want you to have the TARDIS,” he said.  “If I don’t make it.  You’re the only one who knows how to operate it.”

“And after me?” River tried to conceal her distress; she didn’t want to contemplate the possibility of the TARDIS without the Doctor in it.  She thought suddenly of the Papal Mainframe’s warning to her: _the biggest secret of all; the one he’s been keeping since the first time he met you; the one he will never, ever tell you_.  Was this it?  The secret of his own death?

“Bring the TARDIS to Earth, to twenty-first century London,” the Doctor said.  “There’s a boy called Luke Smith, the son of Sarah Jane Smith, a good friend of mine.  He’s brilliant.  Show him how to pilot the ship.  He’ll learn quickly.  He can have it after you.  Or take him with you—it doesn’t matter.”

“All right,” said River.  “If that’s what you want.”

He pulled her to him, caressing her back, burying his face in her hair.  River could sense his grief—he loved life, and as much as he must sometimes crave the peace of oblivion, he hated losing even a piece of it.  Each regeneration was like a small death, losing part of himself that would never come back. 

At last he drew away and stood.  “Right,” he said, all business and _joie de vivre_ once again.  “Time to get dressed.  People to meet, things to do, places to go.”

“Battles to plan,” River added.

He touched her nose.  “My beautiful wife,” he said.  River felt like Morgaine or Guinevere, setting Arthur’s body in a boat and letting it drift into some mist-shrouded lake, a Fae realm from which there could be no return.

**To be continued…**


	7. Half-Sick of Shadows--Epilogue

_Epilogue_

The small, sleek starliner touched down inside the vast hangar.  A few moments later, the engines powered down, and a team of technicians rushed out to tend to the craft.

A disembarkation module lowered from the ship’s belly, descending to the floor of the hangar.  The doors of the capsule whooshed apart, and out strode Madame Kovarian, flanked by clerics.  More clerics waited for her with an internal transit vehicle, a jeep-like machine used for getting around the base.  Without a word, Madame Kovarian climbed into the front passenger seat, and the clerics drove her across the hangar, into one of the subterranean passageways that honeycombed the mountain fortress.

Their destination was at the heart of the mountain.  In an outer chamber, Madame Kovarian allowed a security robot to read her handprint and retina.  The ‘bot permitted her entry to an inner room, where more clerics scanned her for concealed weapons—the order was most vigilant about betrayal from within.

How strange it felt to travel through the base and see no Headless Monks, not even one.

Once Madame Kovarian had been cleared, she was given access to a lift that took her to the Inner Sanctum, a heavily fortified area to which only the most high-ranking members of the order were permitted.  Her heart pounded, her mouth was dry, and rage beat its own pulse in her temple.  She was unused to feeling afraid, and it infuriated her to feel this way now.

A pair of Silents guarded the topmost level of the fortress.  When Madame Kovarian exited the lift, they gazed at her, inscrutable, chittering low in their throats, nodding her into the Inner Sanctum.

Pontifex Artaxiad stood with his back to the door, gazing through blastproof windows down over the base.  The Citidel normally buzzed with purposeful activity; today, its usual rhythms had been upended, personnel scurrying to and fro, anxious and agitated.  Even from this distance, Madame Kovarian could sense their fear, their uncertainty.

She waited: Pontifex Artaxiad knew she was there, but he chose not to acknowledge her, making her wait, making her squirm.  He was very tall, his spindly frame draped in robes of deep burgundy and purple, embroidered in gold thread with the emblem of the Silence.

At last he turned, his face composed in its usual haughty, unreadable mask.  Like all members of the inner circle, he wore an external hard drive over one eye.  Madame Kovarian bowed deeply.

“Your Holiness,” she said, though she knew full well groveling wouldn’t save her life.

“Madame Kovarian,” he said.  “I trust your latest mission went well?”

“Yes, Your Holiness,” she said.

“You have, no doubt, heard the news?”

“Most distressing, Your Holiness.”

“Yes.  Somehow, the Papal Mainframe was breached.  Ordinarily; the Mainframe was fully capable of destroying interlopers in Her own way.  But these were no ordinary intruders.  They were almost impervious to the Mainframe’s power; they somehow blew the entire motherboard and triggered the self-destruct mechanism.  The planet ripped apart.  The animating force that controls the Headless Monks is obliterated, and they’ve all collapsed.  The bishops and cardinals can no longer channel the Mainframe’s influence and use it to persuade and intimidate the weak.  Many of our strongholds throughout the universe are now in a state of chaos, servants revolting against their masters.  Everywhere, our position, our authority, is being usurped.  I’m sure you understand the implications of all this, Madame Kovarian.”

“Yes, Your Holiness.”

“And now, we’ve had news that Dr. River Song has been granted a universal pardon by the Shadow Proclamation.  The only reason such a pardon would be granted is if the crime were never committed.  The Doctor was never murdered.  The assassination attempt failed.  I trust you have some explanation for this, Madame Kovarian?”

“Your Holiness, there were Silents at Lake Silencio who confirmed that the Doctor was struck down with an energy blast to each heart.  He was shot again in mid-regeneration.  His body was burned.  His companions grieved.  The Silents would have known if any of that was a sham.  The body was recovered by the Judoon, and a DNA sample confirmed the Doctor’s identity.”

“And yet, he somehow eluded death.”

“Your Holiness, it’s impossible for him to have done that without disrupting Time itself.”

“Somehow, despite all your elaborate machinations and clever precautions, the Doctor survived without disrupting Time.  We prepared you long and well for this assignment, Madame Kovarian.  You had every resource of the Silence at your disposal.  And you failed in every aspect.  The asset, Melody Pond, proved both unstable and treacherous, a complete waste of our time and efforts.  And yet you persisted in trying to use her as the trigger woman for the mission.  Clearly, she conspired with the Doctor to help him elude death.  They’re both at large, still working against the Silence, and now they’ve struck us a potentially crippling blow.”  Pontifex Artaxiad’s tone of voice had barely changed as he spoke.  “And all this is because of your failure, Madame Kovarian.  Your failure to complete your assigned mission.”

“Your Holiness,” she said, fighting to keep from trembling, “Your Holiness, I can make this right—please allow me to prove I can still—”

“No,” said the pontiff.  “No, you’re quite done, Madame Kovarian.  Oh, the Silence will still put an end to the Doctor, have no doubt.  But it will no longer require your services.”

With that, Pontifex Artaxiad touched a small device on his wrist, causing thousands of volts of electricity to burst out of Madame Kovarian’s eye drive.  She let out one brief, piercing shriek, her entire body convulsing, then she dropped with a heavy thud to the floor, where she lay, motionless.

Without blinking, Pontifex Artaxiad touched another button on his wrist, summoning a pair of highly-ranking clerics to the Inner Sanctum.

“Dispose of that,” he said, nodding once toward Madame Kovarian’s body.  They knew better than to show any reaction on their faces.

“Yes, Your Holiness,” they chorused, hefting the body and dragging it from the chamber.  The pontiff returned to the observation window, all his thoughts bent toward the future, to the Fields of Trenzalore, to the now-inevitable the confrontation with the Doctor.  This time, he vowed, the Time Lord _would_ fall.  No more agents, no more warriors, no more assassins.  This time, Pontifex Artaxiad would strike the death blow himself. 

Using the communications device on his desk, he summoned the surviving members of the inner circle.  “Come at once,” he ordered.  “We have much to discuss.”

**The End**


End file.
